


The Watchman

by radio_silent



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Amongst Other Places, Drama, Field Trips to the British Museum, Humor, M/M, Wholock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-13
Updated: 2012-08-23
Packaged: 2017-11-12 02:13:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 24,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radio_silent/pseuds/radio_silent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the Doctor shows up outside of 221B, John finds his loyalties tested—and his entire world turned upside down.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "The Watchman" is set just after "The God Complex" in Doctor Who (6x11) and shortly after the pool incident in Sherlock (mid-2x01).
> 
> Endless thanks to [Ardith Block](http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2646295/Ardith_Block), aka my lovely friend Emily, who has spent so much time and effort beta-ing this work. Any remaining errors are entirely my own.

“John!”

The day they met the Doctor wasn’t the first day John woke to the sound of Sherlock shouting out his name. It also wouldn’t be the last.

Every bloody time, though, John bolted straight up in bed and fumbled until he had his fingers wrapped around his SIG-Sauer. That was military training. It was for a good purpose. In theory.

The moment his fingers touched the cool metal John came back to his senses. This wasn’t an emergency; it was, well, _typical._ Sherlock was likely shouting because he was too lazy to cross the room and pick up his phone. Maybe he wanted a cup of tea.

John well knew that if their lives were in danger Sherlock wouldn’t have shouted at all. Sherlock would’ve kept silent, embraced the element of surprise.

John sighed to himself, but at the same time he felt his mouth curving into a smile. Sherlock knew better, of course, but just this once he was lucky enough that his shouting served a useful purpose. Before Sherlock called out, John had been stuck in a nightmare.

It wasn’t one of the Afghanistan ones, not nearly that bad, but a nightmare nonetheless. John dreamt about coming home from the war to another life, a life without 221B and its resident madman. He wasn’t miserable in the dream, except that he was. It was just like the time before Sherlock—no one would admit anything was wrong, and John kept clamping down a constant, nagging urge to yell at everyone around him.

John didn’t bother responding to Sherlock’s shouts—for Christ’s sake, Sherlock wasn’t thirteen and John wasn’t his mum—but given the choice between the madman and his old empty flat and a loaded gun, well, John knew which was the good dream and which was the bad one.

“John! John! John!”

Well. Mostly he did.

Then John heard some kind of creaking noise and a crash, one straight after another. It made compelling logic for getting out of bed, he had to admit. Had to make sure Sherlock wasn’t setting the kitchen on fire again…or the street? Had the noises come from _outside?_

Maybe the noises hadn’t come from Sherlock at all.

John swallowed. He tucked the gun into the waistband of his pyjamas as he stood and glanced out the window.

 _What the bloody hell is_ that _—_

“John!” Sherlock yelled again. “Come on!”

But John couldn’t go and find Sherlock, because John couldn’t move at all. There was a blue box lying out on the Baker Street pavement. Just lying there, like a great big present waiting to be unwrapped. Or the world’s largest, bluest bomb. Oh God. Sherlock.

Suddenly a man’s head popped out of the side of the box.

_What?_

And Sherlock was still yelling his name. That was a good thing; it meant he hadn’t given up to go and investigate on his own just yet. Which—well, this would have to be investigated. John wanted to know everything—the man, the box, the ridiculously early hour of the morning. None of it made the slightest bit of sense.

 John found a jumper and a pair of shoes and met Sherlock in the living room. The detective practically flew through the room, his blue dressing gown flapping out behind him like a cloak. John hurried to catch up.

“Sherlock!” John whispered. “Stop shouting, you’ll wake Mrs. Hudson!”

Sherlock paused for half a second, just long enough to nod once. “Good,” he said. “You’ll need breakfast.”

John didn’t have time to roll his eyes as he ran down the steps behind Sherlock. He did manage to mutter to himself as Sherlock reached the door. It was nothing much, just “Odd start to a morning,” but Sherlock glanced back toward John with a smile spread across his face. Funny, John hadn’t realized Sherlock was listening. But there it was, Sherlock’s brilliant new case smile; his Christmas smile. The one that always made John’s breath catch in his throat the tiniest bit.

Based on the size of his smile alone, John half-thought Sherlock deduced the box contained a dead body…The box did seem big enough for two people, just barely. One of those people was certainly alive, but the other…John placed a hand at the small of his back, feeling for the bulge of the gun just as Sherlock unlocked the door to their flat.  

John and Sherlock watched the tall, skinny man hop about the police box lying across the pavement. Then the stranger leaned on the box’s side and peered down into the open doors. He stood up straight and pulled a glowing green stick (A torch? Must have been a torch…) out of his pocket and waved it around a bit.

So.

 _Very_ odd start to a morning, then.

The stranger called over to them. “Hello! Terribly sorry about this, I won’t be a minute! No, that’s a lie, I’ll probably be several minutes. But minutes, what are they? Blink of an eye and they’re gone.” He squeezed his eyes closed for a moment, then opened then even wider than before. “You shouldn’t miss any of them—minutes. They’re good things. Don’t blink. Hah!”

“Hello,” he said. Then he walked up to Sherlock and kissed the air around his cheeks. John had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing aloud as the consulting detective’s eyes went wide and his entire body tensed up. Sherlock wasn’t in any danger of blinking then. But then the stranger did the same to John and he too went tense. He tried not to, though.

John knew he wasn’t any good at deductions, but he considered himself pretty good at reading people. This man seemed friendly enough. Very, very strange but friendly. And John lived with one Sherlock Holmes—he was well used to strange.

The stranger gestured over to the box. “ _This_ is what happens when you blink. Blink and the gravity filter’s thrown out, switch is broken. Knew I should have put in a dimmer. Poor thing, all that Newtonian physics ‘getting her down.’”

He leaned toward them with an enthusiastic, conspiratorial smile. Even though John didn’t have the slightest idea what the man was on about, he found himself smiling a little in return. “In short, there’s only one other person who knows where these TARDIS controls are, and I’ve been meaning to pay her a visit.”

John felt rather than saw the way Sherlock bristled beside him. He glanced up at Sherlock’s face and noticed that the dead-body grin had gone away. Sherlock might have seemed a blank slate now to others, but John could tell he was still deducing.

Still deducing, and maybe a little put-out at the fact.

Lucky for the two of them, then, that John didn’t mind asking the stupid questions.

“Sorry, mate,” John said. “Do we know you from somewhere?”

“No,” the stranger and Sherlock said at the same time. Sherlock sounded significantly less pleased about this information.

John licked his lips for a second. Then he edged around the box and into the street until he was able to stand on the free pavement at the base of the box.

The stranger stood next to him, knocking all over the base of the box. Then the man stood back and listed, as if someone would knock back. John listened carefully, but he didn’t hear anything.

“John Watson,” John said, and held out his hand.

The stranger stopped knocking to shake John’s hand emphatically. “Excellent name,” the stranger said. “Love that name. I’m the Doctor.”

“Ah,” John’s smile grew more genuine. Finally, something he understood. “Me too.”

“What? But you were John Watson! Never met anyone else called ‘The Doctor’ before.” He frowned at John. “I don’t think I like it…”

“But I _am_ adoctor. Wait, sorry. You call yourself ‘The Doctor?’”

“He doesn’t practice medicine,” Sherlock said.

“Oh.” John looked at the Doctor, confused. “Don’t you?”

“I practice lots of things,” the Doctor said. He turned back to the box effectively avoiding their gazes.

“He doesn’t,” Sherlock said from his spot on the steps. “He doesn’t do much beside run and occasionally hide. You go by ‘the Doctor,’ but Doctor isn’t a name, it’s a title. It’s not even an alias. A common title, nearly anonymous. You don’t see me attempting to call John ‘The Boyfriend.’”

John rolled his eyes. “Oh, now that Sarah’s gone, _now_ you can admit she exists.”

“I didn’t say you were Sarah’s boyfriend.” John didn’t have time to so much as blink at the comment, much less ask Sherlock what he meant by it, before Sherlock continued on.

“No, ‘The Doctor’ is way of avoiding a name altogether.” Though Sherlock addressed his deductions to John, it was clear who his real audience was. “Just like that,” he gestured toward the Doctor, whose face screwed up in concentration as he worked, “is a way of avoiding questions about his real face. His old face.”

Sherlock stared at the Doctor, who slowly lifted his head to stare at Sherlock. Naturally Sherlock watched right back. “You aren’t _nearly_ that young,” he concluded.

“Sherlock,” John whispered admonishingly. He felt a bit like Mrs. Hudson, scolding his friend, but the fact of the matter was that you didn’t go around talking about people’s reconstructive surgeries. Or you shouldn’t, anyway. If this had been some criminal, or even someone who really deserved it (okay, maybe if it had been Anderson), well, that would be different. John might have understood.

Sometimes John felt like his life was one long countdown to the moment someone snapped and performed a citizen’s arrest on Sherlock.

The Doctor spoke in a low, deadly serious voice. “What else do you know about me?”

“I can deduce that you’re a good liar,” Sherlock said imperiously. “You’ve even made a career out of it. Kleptomaniac streak in your youth. That’s how you got in the habit of running. You aren’t from around here. You never stay anywhere long.  You’ve been through battle, through wars, but you’ve never picked up a med kit or a gun. You think you’re noble, you manage to convince other people you are, but I rather disagree.”

John glanced between the Doctor and Sherlock and their matching glares. He grimaced, waiting for the explosion.

“Hah!” The Doctor said, and John startled. The Doctor’s face creased in what John could only think of as a proudsmile. “It really is you! Fiction does like to get a grip on those fluctuations in time. You know, witches in Shakespeare and all that. Dr. John Watson and Sherlock Holmes! The two of you, you’re amazing.”

John gawped.

“Oh goody,” Sherlock said dryly. “A _fan._ ”

John tried to recover. “Spot on,” he said. He clapped a hand on the Doctor’s arm, mostly so he could keep standing. If this person was what he appeared to be, something like a second Sherlock Holmes…Oh.

God.

 “You’re almost as good as he is,” John managed.

Sherlock scoffed and crossed his arms. “John. He’s probably read about me on that ridiculous blog of yours.”

Oh. Oh, that was true. Maybe John didn’t have to panic at all.

“You’re missing the hat, of course,” the Doctor continued. “But still, brilliant all the same.” He turned to John. “Oh, and you keep a _blog._ That’s awfully modern, awfully clever of you, isn’t it?”

“Not terribly,” Sherlock muttered. “It’s usually highly inaccurate.”

 _“Thank you,”_ John said pointedly. He smiled at the Doctor. Sherlock might have been wrong about the bloke. Must have done. John glanced back to Sherlock. “Some people think it’s clever, anyway.”

Sherlock finally moved from the steps and stood next to John, brushing their shoulders together. John rolled his eyes even as he smiled. Sherlock needed to work on his apologies, no surprises there, but John got the message all the same.

The Doctor bounced on the balls of his feet. “Deduced by Sherlock Holmes! Don’t know how I can top that...I’ll have to break River out of prison again just to have a fighting chance. Bother. Well, needs must!” He wandered away from them, poking at the blue box with his torch all over again.

Sherlock leaned over to John, close enough so his lips nearly touched John’s ear. “You’ll be wanting breakfast,” he said softly, just seconds before John’s stomach rumbled.

“What about the Doctor?”

“He’s not invited,” Sherlock said.

“I’d be very good on a case,” the Doctor argued. “I’d even bring a hat!”

“No, no cases at the moment. We don’t need your help, goodbye.” Sherlock said as he pushed John back into the flat.

Of course, the second they entered the building Sherlock rushed off without a glance back at his friend.

John let his head drop against the door and shut his eyes. He wasn’t entirely sure what had just happened, between the green-coloured torch and the man that spoke as fast as Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock’s sudden, intense animosity toward the Doctor and the many, many deductions that seemed too impossible to be true.

And if that wasn’t enough, John now seemed to be hallucinating a faint sort of whooshing sound…

 “Odd start to a morning” didn’t _begin_ to cover it.

 

 

John tried to ask Sherlock about the man who called himself “The Doctor.” More than once, even. John just couldn’t stop thinking about all of Sherlock’s odd, even confusing deductions. The Doctor didn’t seem like a bad person, not really. Odd, certainly. But he hadn’t seemed like someone who had evil secrets or a dark past.

And what was all this about the Doctor’s “new face”? John was a doctor, an actual physician, and he couldn’t see any traces of cosmetic surgery. How could Sherlock tell? He wasn’t exactly the expert on such matters…

But then, that was life with Sherlock, wasn’t it? In some ways life with Sherlock was just a flood of wonderfully odd conclusions; John simply did his best to keep up with the deluge. He shouldn’t be surprised that Sherlock had made confusing deductions.

No, what was really surprising was Sherlock’s reaction. That was entirely new.

Because every time John asked about the Doctor, Sherlock pointedly ignored the question and spoke of something else. Sometimes he fell utterly silent and glared stonily at the floor. John couldn’t explain the reaction, even to himself. He half-wondered if Sherlock fancied the Doctor, only it was Sherlock, who never fancied _anyone._  

Eventually he got the message and stopped asking.

In the end, John didn’t even get points for his discretion. Eight days after the strange, strange morning he and Sherlock exited 221B, turned the corner towards the park, and walked smack into the Doctor. The Doctor breathed heavily—he seemed to have been running straight towards them.

Sherlock glared directly at John, as if this were somehow all John’s fault. John widened his eyes and shook his head slightly at Sherlock. Sherlock was well aware John had no idea what the Doctor was doing here. Wasn’t he?

It wasn’t as though John had the man’s phone number or anything.

Sherlock turned sharply away from John. Oh, he knew. He had to. John would bet anything Sherlock just didn’t care.

“What are you doing here?” Sherlock asked the Doctor.

The Doctor gripped Sherlock’s crossed arms tightly as his breathing slowed. “I’m sorry,” he said. “What did you just say?”

“I won’t repeat myself,” Sherlock replied.

John licked his lips but gave up and shrugged. “He probably won’t,” he said. “But really, Doctor, what are you doing here? It’s nice to see you again of course…”

“No, no, that’s not it at all,” the Doctor said.

Sherlock turned to John with a close-lipped, very angry smile.

“No,” the Doctor continued, “I was just saying I would need to find River, and you finished deducing me. But that last thing you just said, I need you to repeat that. Word for word.”

John wondered if the Doctor had reconsidered and was about to punch Sherlock.

Sherlock uncrossed his arms, so that the Doctor’s hands fell from his shoulders. He stared at the Doctor, “I said you aren’t noble, despite your own delusions. I was correct,” Sherlock said. “ _Obviously._ ” ~~~~

“Um,” John said, as maybe the sole voice of reason. “Sherlock didn’t _just_ say anything. We met you days ago.” The Doctor had been running toward them, he looked a bit flushed now. “Mate—are you all right?”

The Doctor shrugged in a gesture eerily reminiscent of Sherlock. “Oh, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey, that’s an everyday problem. You…” He stared at Sherlock; Sherlock stared at the Doctor. They were so close together, actually, that John wouldn’t have enough space to sandwich himself in between the two of them if he wanted to.

Not that he wanted to. What? John blinked. Where had that thought even come from?

“…you’re something special.”

Sherlock narrowed his eyes. “How so?”

“Well you were nearly correct!”

“Of course,” Sherlock said. “You already know my success rate. You’ve read John’s _blog._ ” He crinkled his nose up in disgust at the word.

“Oi!” John said. 

“No no no, observation doesn’t work on me!” the Doctor said.

Sherlock snorted, and the Doctor smirked back.

“No, it’s true. See?” the Doctor gestured behind him, and John realized he had somehow missed the blue police box. Maybe he didn’t recognize the box because it was upright. Was the Doctor a policeman?

The Doctor finally broke his staring contest with Sherlock, thank God, and walked briskly back towards the box. John and Sherlock followed until the Doctor stopped. The Doctor pointed to the box.

“Tardis,” he said. “Observation: funny blue box. Truth? Aha!” The Doctor pulled back the door with all the flourish of a magician and shut the door with a slap half a second later.

John found himself gawping all over again. He wasn’t sure what he had seen inside, but it was orange and gleaming and there sure had been a lot of it. It looked like a futuristic nightclub, maybe, or a theatre set. It was _that_ kind of surreal. John wondered if he had made the entire thing up, just imagined it all. A brief hallucination? A daydream? There had to be some solution.

“Bigger on the inside,” the Doctor commented.

What did that even mean?

John glanced at Sherlock. His mouth wasn’t hanging open like John’s had done. Sherlock’s eyes were bright, sharp as a pocketknife. John swallowed. That was Sherlock’s dead body face, all right.

John was sure he hadn’t seen a dead body in the box. But then, he wasn’t sure what he’d seen.

“Doctor,” the Doctor said, pointing to himself. “Observation: madman with a box. Truth? Well, _yes_ …well! It’s not so simple! Doesn’t do to make assumptions.”

“Deductions,” corrected Sherlock.

“I’m sorry,” said John.

“Really, John?” Sherlock muttered.

It’s true, John had generally stopped apologizing for Sherlock’s rudeness, it was about as effective as apologizing for rain anywhere in the British Isles, but there was something in the Doctor’s eyes that John recognized, something about the tone of his voice that made John remember a time before he had met a madman to call his own.

Loneliness, John realized with a start. That’s what it was. 

 “I’m sorry, Doctor.”

That was Sherlock’s voice, saying sorry. Only it wasn’t his voice at all. John wondered if he really _was_ hallucinating. Sherlock’s voice was sweet as honey. He was shamming—but he couldn’t do that, surely? He couldn’t sham to someone who’d already seen the real Sherlock Holmes. Of all people, John should know. Impossible to go back.

But that’s exactly what Sherlock was trying to do. John watched with a kind of perverse curiosity—this wouldn’t work. Couldn’t do.

“I appreciate hearing feedback from all fans, even ones with a…what did you call your box?”

“Tardis. That’s T-A-R-D-I-S, write it down if you like. The impossible-to-deduce box.”

 “Mmm. And what’s inside it, exactly?”

“Oh, bit of a long story. And I have to be off, places to go and people to save,” The Doctor winked. “Oh yes, Sherlock Holmes, I save people. Maybe I’ll even save you, one day. I know, I know, it’s impossible. But so am I!”

The Doctor slipped inside the police box and slammed the door shut. It was all a bit anticlimactic, really. He didn’t even open the door wide enough for them to see the inside again.

“Well,” John concluded. “That was—”

“Shut up,” Sherlock ordered. The detective stepped back from the box—but didn’t turn away—and John, curious, followed suit.

The box made a whooshing sound as it faded in and out of view. John recognized that sound. Last week, when he’d gone inside…he wondered if the blue box had been fading in and out like this back then as well. Fading in and out and then…gone?

Drugs. The Doctor must have fed them drugs somehow. Or John was still asleep and dreaming. Surely.

But then, John couldn’t be dreaming. The way Sherlock’s face lit up like lightning in a thunderstorm, the way his brows furrowed as he stomped away without a word to John? Well. That was a classic Sherlockian sulk, and all too real.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I have scientific proof he’s from outer space. And,” Sherlock gestured to the syringe, “I’ve created a poison.”

Sherlock didn’t mention the Doctor again. John didn’t ask. For the next two weeks they didn’t say much beyond what passed for their usual pleasantries. (“We’re out of milk, Sherlock!” “John, send a text to Lestrade: Was Christina Henry’s microwave brand-new?”) They hadn’t got any new cases from Lestrade, just little things off the website. John went to the pub with Mike Stamford and took shifts at the clinic, but Sherlock barely left the flat. That was a bit suspicious—John would have expected Sherlock to rail about and put bullet-holes in their wallpaper, but instead John caught Sherlock staring off into space in an odd, unfocused way. Sometimes the man would shush John, urgently, when Sherlock didn’t appear to be working on anything at all.

John didn’t know what to make of it. Sherlock always seemed put-out between cases, but he usually didn’t seem so _lost_. John was at a loss himself wondering how to help Sherlock out of the mood. Needless to say, neither John nor Sherlock did a very good job of hiding their relief when Lestrade called them up again. This time it was news of a strangling, and Sherlock’s telltale grin stretched wide.

John found himself accidentally echoing the expression, but his own grin fell just a touch as they approached the crime scene. There it was, the standard scene: the crime tape, the dead body, Lestrade and his team. But that wasn’t all.

“And _that,”_ The Doctor said, “is why I owe Casanova a chicken. Two, by his count.”

John saw Lestrade trying not to laugh aloud. The DI wasn’t doing a terribly good job of it, either. John remembered that feeling: _We can’t giggle, it’s a crime scene_. He smiled at the thought. That was his first case.

So it wasn’t that John didn’t like the Doctor. He certainly seemed like a nice enough bloke, and it was fantastic to see Lestrade laughing, or even holding laughter in, for a change. It wasn’t as if John _wasn’t_ deeply curious about Doctor’s blue box with the orange insides, or his green torch he seemed to use more like a wand than a torch.

On the other hand, since they’d met the Doctor, Sherlock had been as moody as ever, maybe moodier. Odd, really—John would have expected Sherlock to like the man. He seemed a walking mystery just waiting to be solved. John didn’t have to look over to see that the dead body smile was all but wiped from Sherlock’s face at this point, and to know the disappearance had nothing to do with Anderson (as it usually did).

“This is the Doctor,” Lestrade told them. “He’s from—”

“MI6!” the Doctor said. Then he leaned in to John. “Oh! I had meant that to be quieter. Wouldn’t want to take the secret out of the service, now would we? No. Hm. I don’t think we would…”

 John nodded, trying not to laugh as well. “So this is a foreign case, then?” He asked instead. “I thought the victim was from Sussex.” He wondered if the Doctor really was an agent. That would explain Sherlock’s comments, wouldn’t it? Maybe his title was just a code name. “The Doctor” didn’t sound as good as 007, but John supposed that was the difference between fiction and reality.

“Is he,” the Doctor said, not sounding very interested. “But you know, day off. I was bored.”

John nodded. “I know that feeling,” John said. Even if John didn’t get ‘bored’ in the way Sherlock did, his flatmate had left him well-acquainted with the emotion.

“He’s not MI6,” Sherlock said.

“You’re not really a _fun_ person, are you?” The Doctor said. “Sherlock Holmes, you’re supposed to be fun!”

“Says who?” Donovan called out in between making notes about the victim.

“Yes, Sherlock, he is MI6,” Lestrade said. “He has the proper ID card and everything.”

Sherlock sneered at the Doctor and moved to the body. John wasn’t surprised at the reaction. Sherlock turned back to Lestrade. “Yet IDs can easily be faked—”

“His _isn’t,_ ” Lestrade interjected.

“—and we’ve already met. Hello, ‘Doctor.’”

The Doctor gawped at Sherlock and smacked his own head a few times with the flat of his palm. “Oh!” he cried. “Oh, of course! Well _no,_ not _that_ , but maybe…”

“What?” John asked. “Did you have a breakthrough about the case?”

“Yes! Oh. The murder? No! Nothing. Well, it’s certainly more than nothing…” The Doctor stared straight at Sherlock and shook his head, as if he were reordering his brain for a moment, before he turned back to John. “I’m on a case with Sherlock Holmes! Blimey. That’s fantastic!”

John smiled. “It is, a bit. Better when he isn’t moody.”

The Doctor nodded. “Still missing the hat, though. The hat was _cool._ ”

“What hat?”

But the Doctor was already gone. He ran over to Sherlock and offered the detective a large, old-fashioned magnifying glass. Sherlock shook his head, refusing the gift. Frankly John just wanted to know how the Doctor managed to pull something that large out of his trouser pocket! He continued to wonder at the increasingly odd scene unfolding before him—the Doctor kept trying to give Sherlock the glass and Sherlock kept refusing and turning back to the body. But why did the Doctor _keep trying?_

Finally Sherlock turned to snap at the Doctor and almost simultaneously the Doctor tucked the magnifying glass into the crook of Sherlock’s newly folded arms. Then the Doctor dashed back to John, smiling.

“Partly there,” he told John. “It’s too bad I forgot the hat!”

“Er. What hat?”

The doctor reached up and gestured to the air around his head. “You know, the one with the…well it had the flaps…but they were…it was _cool_ ,” he finally sighed. “He’s _wrong_ without it!”

John frowned. Sherlock wasn’t wrong. Well, not usually. Also, he didn’t own any hats.

“Lestrade,” Sherlock called out. “Why did you remove the victim’s cufflinks?”

Lestrade walked over to John and the Doctor. “I didn’t!” he called out to Sherlock.

“Oh!” the Doctor said.

John and Lestrade turned to face the Doctor.

“That’s how he…” the Doctor said. “Oh, _also,_ do you smell that? That’s very interesting, that smell. It smells like a Hautian boxbloom in springtime but on earth the only thing close is the Amyris. Amyris is beautiful, grows lots of places, but only so many places that would make a scarf. Yes, definitely a scarf that strangled him, just look at him to see that. There’s a region in South America where Amyris grows.  They make it into perfume. One would think perfume because, well, the victim was killed with a woman's scarf. I’d think a purple one with lots of floofy fringy things. But that region's not particularly good with making perfume...what they are good at is llamas. Big smelly ones that they knit into scarves which only tourists ever buy. So someone who has travelled to Ecuador within, let's see, two months. Strangled means personal crime, doesn’t it? And the victim has a ring on, so regular enough contact that she knew he was married. Must have been someone he worked with. Probably left handed. Though when you go to the killer’s house, which I think you’ll find on Admiral Court, Chelsea, third house on the left, the cat who likes to sleep on that scarf might now be somewhat peevish.”

The entire crime scene went silent and very, very still.

“Wow,” Lestrade said slowly. “He could give you a run for your money, Sherlock! In fact, I’m pretty sure he just did.”

“That’s amazing,” John added.

“John!” Sherlock said. He sounded scandalized.

“Oh, it was nothing,” the Doctor said, smiling widely. “I’m no Sherlock Holmes…”

“Yeah,” Donovan said. “You’re much nicer. You’re actually a _human being_.”

“Well—” the Doctor said.

John turned around to look for Sherlock. He hated hearing those kinds of remarks almost as much as Sherlock did. Not that Sherlock said anything, but John could deduce. Sherlock wasn’t inhuman, no matter what anyone said, and he certainly wasn’t invulnerable. 

He did seem to be invisible, however, just at this moment—or rather, _gone._ John didn’t bother to hide his frown. He couldn’t believe it. It had been months since Sherlock had last forgotten him at a crime scene, and it hurt more than John would like to admit to be in the position once more. It was like John had been downgraded—he wasn’t sure to what. From Sherlock’s actual friend to…well. Something below assistant, apparently.

“John, are you coming?” Lestrade asked.

“Huh?”

 “Donovan and I are treating the Doctor to a pint. Saying thank you and all.”

The Doctor leaned over to John. “Which one is a pint again?” he whispered.

John groaned. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me people delete _pints_ from their mental hard drives.” Surely that was relevant information. What about pub brawls? People got murdered in pubs, drinking pints, all the time!

“Delete?” the Doctor asked. “And what’s a ‘mental hard drive’?”

“Um,” John told the Doctor. He turned to Lestrade.“I’ll join! Yes. Thanks.”

Some time away from a sulking Sherlock might be a good idea, actually…maybe even a brilliant one.

 

 

“Blech!”

John watched, amused, as the Doctor spit about half a pint of beer back into his glass. Donovan turned her face away in disgust. Lestrade just smirked from his spot across the booth.

The Doctor turned to John. “I thought you said beer was good!”

“I suppose it’s not for everyone,” John said. “I think it’s good, anyway.”

“Blech.” The Doctor pouted in a way that was nothing short of endearing. It reminded John a little of Sherlock’s sulks, except it was much funnier.

Of course, John had had a few pints himself—everything was funnier now. Not the least of which were the Doctor’s stories. They were clearly false, which was only part of the fun. It’s not as though the Doctor could actually tell them MI6 business. Instead everything was about aliens and other planets. The Doctor had got so wrapped up in his stories that he’d forgotten his drink until now. John thought about the Doctor’s face when he had tried the beer, and Donovan’s face, and Lestrade’s, and he had to hold back his giggles at the recent memory.

“I would never have guessed you’re MI6,” Anderson told the Doctor.

John waited patiently for Sherlock’s inevitable insult, something about Anderson lack of guessing abilities. It never came.

“What’s wrong?” the Doctor asked the silent table.

“Funny,” Lestrade said. “I just expected Sherlock say something rude.” He chuckled a bit. “He’s not even _here._ ”

“Oi!”

“Well, no offense meant, Anderson.”

“In that case,” Donovan said, “why are we still talking about Sherlock? Freak’s not even present and he’s dominating the discussion.” She pointed her finger at everyone. “You’re all obsessed, if you ask me.”

“Interesting!” the Doctor cried. “Sally, why do you say that?”

“Because you keep talking about Sherlock-bloody-Holmes!”

“No, ‘freak.’ You called him ‘freak.’ Is that slang for ‘cool’ in—” he checked his watch. “2010?”

Donovan nearly choked on her beer. _“No,”_ she managed between coughs.

“MI6?” Anderson said. “See, never would have guessed.”

Sherlock didn’t have to be there, really. John’s mind supplied the _Idiot!_ all on its own.In fact, the thought even came to John in a voice that sounded suspiciously like Sherlock’s.

“Why are you calling him a freak, then? If it’s bad? Sherlock Holmes is good,” the Doctor said. John watched the man carefully for signs the comment was sarcastic. No. He looked genuinely confused. Just when John thought he couldn’t like the Doctor more... “He’s very, very good!”

“Now, Doctor, you can’t go saying things like that,” Donovan said with a wink at the Doctor. “You’ll make John jealous.”

 “Shut up, Donovan,” John said. “The Doctor can say what he likes. He’s…wise! Besides,” he took a sip of his beer. “We’re—”       

“—not a couple,” everyone at the table, except the Doctor, said the words perfectly in time with John. Yes, yes, they’d heard it before. John knew that. He also knew he’d stop saying it when they started listening.

“That’s not by choice, though, is it?” Donovan whispered to John.

John rolled his eyes.

When _anyone_ started listening.

“I figure Sherlock’s a bit of all right, these days,” Lestrade said. “When we met, though. Christ. John, I’m glad you’ll never have to see him back then. ‘Freak’ doesn’t really do it justice. He was a bloody mess. Amazing what five years and a friend—” Lestrade gestured to John, who may have grinned a bit, “have done.”

John heard a _thunk_ and turned to the source of the noise. The Doctor’s pint glass had knocked over. Anderson and Donovan stood up as beer headed their direction.

“Five years,” the Doctor muttered. “ _Oh._ ”

 “Doctor—mate,” Lestrade said. “Are you all right?”

John didn’t understand the fuss. It was just a little spill. Happened all the time.

“ _Of course!_ ” the Doctor said.

Well then, what was everyone upset about?

“Well,” Donovan said eventually. “Let me get some napkins…”

Lestrade stared at the Doctor warily. “Have you been putting away pints while I wasn’t looking?”

The Doctor’s eyes darted about, like he was hiding something. John nearly giggled at that. As if the Doctor could hide anything from them!

“Loads!” the Doctor insisted. “Yes. I have had a lot of them.” He gestured to the pint. “These. Are delicious.”

Donovan returned with napkins, and everyone started wiping up the spilled beer. The Doctor turned to John.

“I have to tell you a secret,” he said. His forehead was all wrinkled. He seemed worried.

He wasn’t Sherlock, obviously, but John gave the man the Holmes smile anyway. It was the one he made when Sherlock deduced something. It was his “Sorry, I’m a bit slow but you’re utterly amazing, did you know that?  So if you’d just explain…” smile. It worked so well for the Doctor! And Sherlock, too, of course.

“I wasn’t _entirely_ honest with you, before,” the Doctor whispered to John. “On the case I... kind of cheated. I hadn’t meant to cheat. I had to read ahead, I needed to know when to find you. Your blog posts are very handy!”

John patted the Doctor’s shoulder. The man seemed to need consoling, even if he wasn’t making much sense.

“I haven’t blogged about it yet,” John said.

“It wasn’t really cheating, you know. I could’ve done it anyway. I’m very clever. Well, I couldn’t have _now_ , I can’t very well un-know something!” The Doctor sighed. “So. Though I am really very, very clever, this time I read your blog. Also, I could have just asked one of the pigeons. There.” He flicked his hands in John’s direction, like he was flicking the secret at him. “That’s everything.”

John watched the Doctor. He didn’t look very happy. And what was all that fuss about _talking to pigeons?_

John giggled.

“What?” the Doctor asked. “Have I got something on my face?”

That reminded John of Sherlock’s accusation about the Doctor, about his ‘real’ ‘old face.’ John thought about how _mad_ Sherlock had seemed at the Doctor, the Doctor of all people, when the Doctor was just as clever as Sherlock and far nicer, and John collapsed into giggles again. He put his hand out to touch the edge of the table to and steady himself.

“John,” the Doctor whispered. He seemed concerned. “I have to ask you something, something very important, something about—”

John’s phone beeped. “Sherlock,” John said.

“Yes! How did you know?”

John looked down at his phone.

_At Bart’s. Come immediately.  SH_

It beeped again, almost immediately.

_You’re in danger.  SH_

John scrunched up his nose.

“But John, I need—” the Doctor said.

“We have to go,” John said. He pulled at the Doctor’s arm. “Come on!”

“John—”

“Ask me on the way!”

John’s phone beeped again, but he didn’t hear it over saying goodbye to Lestrade and the others.

_Get away from the Doctor. NOW.  SH_

 

 

John and the Doctor found Sherlock arm-deep in experiments. Series of Petri dishes were clustered around him like moons orbiting a sun. Sherlock was clearly working on something, though it didn’t look particularly dangerous.

“John, come and look at this dish,” Sherlock called out as he approached. Then he looked up and noticed the Doctor was there as well. John could cite the exact moment, because Sherlock’s eyes went squinty and his frown deepened. “Oh God, John,” Sherlock said. “What have you done?”

“What? I haven’t done anything.”

“Step back,” Sherlock said. He grabbed a syringe from the table and held it in front of him like a knife. “You, _Doctor_ , step away from John. This is full of a fluid that is deadly for your kind.”

“His kind?” John said, “Sherlock, what’s going on?” He tried to speak slowly, as he approached Sherlock. He didn’t want to startle his probably-insane flatmate.

When John reached Sherlock, Sherlock quickly moved his body in front of John’s. John peered around Sherlock to check—the Doctor didn’t have any weapons pointed at them, or anything.

Sherlock hadn’t put down the syringe.

“Who are you working for?” Sherlock asked.

 “Sherlock,” John whispered. “What is going on?”

“Is it Moriarty?”

John froze. It wasn’t. He couldn’t. It was the Doctor! The Doctor didn’t seem evil. He was working for MI6. Lestrade saw his ID!

“He’s an alien, John.”

“WHAT?”

“No. Listen, John. It sounds ridiculous. Truly, I’m aware. But it’s the only possible explanation! I couldn’t solve it, the man didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t possible, is the problem. Isn’t. He _isn’t_ possible. Unless I were to open the field of possibilities. But I took samples from his jacket at the crime scene, I’ve examined the compounds. I have scientific proof he’s from outer space. And,” he gestured to the syringe, “I’ve created a poison.” He stalked toward the Doctor, brandishing the syringe in his hand. The Doctor backed away as Sherlock stalked closer, until the Doctor hit the edge of a desk and fell flat onto the ground. “Now,” Sherlock said as he stood over the Doctor. “Who do you work for?”

John rushed over to the two men. He grabbed Sherlock’s wrist and pulled Sherlock around to face him. He stood up as straight as he could and stared into his friend’s eyes.

“Okay. Now. I have no idea what’s going on—”

_“Obviously.”_

“But you’re going to stop this.” He slowly took the syringe from Sherlock’s hand and placed it on a table. He stared at Sherlock again. He spoke very slowly. “And you’re going to tell me what you’re on.”

Sherlock huffed. “John!”

“You’ve been acting really odd lately, Sherlock, did you think I wouldn’t notice?” John licked his lips. “I think I just didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to believe you could—”

“John! I’m clean.”

John snorted incredulously, and he felt rather than heard the way the sound ripped from his throat.  “You’re not! Sherlock Holmes would never, ever try to tell me that this man—” he gestured behind him “—was an _alien!_ Not if you were in your right mind.”

Something poked John in the back and he whirled around to find the Doctor, upright and, _thank God_ , totally fine, standing behind him.

“Uh,” the Doctor said. “This is a bit embarrassing, isn’t it? Um. Sherlock’s correct. I’m an alien. Hi?”

John’s mouth dropped open. But—he looked perfectly normal!

Sherlock nodded. “Now. Get away from John.”

The Doctor took a large step backward. He hit another lab table but steadied himself on the edge. He hopped up on the table and sat on the tabletop. “I’m sorry, John. I probably should have clarified before. I’m not evil, though! Promise.”

_“What?”_

The Doctor shrugged. “Well, you know. I thought ‘bigger on the inside’ covered it.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“And I told you that as well! Didn’t I? I said I was impossible to deduce. You,” he pointed at Sherlock, “just weren’t listening.”

Sherlock didn’t react to the accusation, but John could practically see all the thoughts churning through his head. If the Doctor was an alien, if aliens were _real_ , John supposed Sherlock would have an awful lot to think about.

“So the TARDIS is your spaceship,” Sherlock said. “‘TARDIS’ is an acronym, isn’t it?”

The Doctor nodded. “Time and Relative Dimension In Space.”

 “Of course, it’s not a spaceship. It’s a spaceship and a _time machine!_ Well, of course it is. You have access to near-infinite technology, after all, why not travel in time? No, the question is, why travel in time in a police box from the 1960s?”

 “So,” John said.  “You’re not MI6.”

Sherlock chuckled. “John. He’s not even from this planet!” Sherlock seemed awfully calm considering he just found out the Doctor was an alien…

“Yes,” the Doctor said. He leaned forward and whispered, even though they were the only people in the room. “But I really can’t say anything more.”

Sherlock nodded, but John didn’t believe that in any way constituted real compliance. As if Sherlock Holmes could find out aliens existed and then let that information lie. John licked his lips. He wondered if this could _possibly_ end well. He supposed it was good Sherlock wasn’t trying to kill the Doctor any more. That was nice.

“Ow!” the Doctor cried out. The Doctor twisted away from them and Sherlock’s syringe clattered fell from his side onto the floor. “Uh,” the Doctor said. “I just scooted back onto that. Sherlock…Tell me you made an antidote to your very very clever Time Lord poison?”

Sherlock shook his head with a smile. “No.”

John rushed to the Doctor’s side. “Then make one! We can’t _kill_ him!”

“No need,” Sherlock said. He picked up the needle as it rolled toward him. He squirted the syringe into his mouth and swallowed. “Saline solution. I was bluffing, John. Honestly. I couldn’t very well let an alien kidnap you, could I?”

“Well!” the Doctor said. He hopped off the table. “Now that that’s sorted, I’m sure you have more questions.”

“I do,” Sherlock said.

“But I have to go now! Friends to see, planets to be saved—see, Sherlock Holmes, I do save people every now and then! You understand, don’t you? You have your own city to keep safe.”

Sherlock nodded.

“But this was fun!” The Doctor hugged each of them, and kissed their cheeks like he had the first time they met. “Maybe we’ll do it again sometime! Best of luck Sherlock Holmes. Get a hat! And Doctor John Watson! You two are brilliant. Don’t ever, ever, ever change.”

He turned and headed toward the door.

“Stagnancy is boring,” Sherlock called out after him.

The Doctor whirled around, but he stayed by the door. “Maybe,” he said. “Or _maybe_ you have your Watson, and London and crimes to solve! Maybe your ‘boring’is underrated!”

The door slammed shut behind him. Sherlock stared at the door, as if by staring alone he could somehow summon the Doctor back.

“What do you think he meant,” John asked, “ _‘your’_ Watson?” 

Sherlock turned to him. “Well. I suppose it could be worse. I thought you showed up here with a murderous alien.”

“Yeah?”

“Just think. You could have showed up with Anderson.”

John looked away from Sherlock, shook his head, and laughed out loud. He just kept laughing. After a few seconds, Sherlock joined in, too.

As far as days with Sherlock went, this one didn’t seem so bad after all.

 

 

Even though John trusted Sherlock and believed the Doctor was an alien—or believed it enough, he supposed…even so, it was a lot to take in—and even though he was glad everyone survived what could have been a fatal encounter on multiple accounts, and even though he was very, very glad things were back to normal, he still jumped about twelve feet in the air when he walked into his office at the clinic the next day.

“So I have two hearts,” the Doctor said. He sat in John’s chair, his feet propped up on the desk. John’s stethoscope was placed around his neck, and he seemed to be listening to his heartbeat—well, heartbeats, John supposed, if the Doctor was to be believed.

“Um,” John said.

“Not all aliens have two hearts. It’s a Time Lord thing. But I can show you, I can offer you definite alien proof! Would you like to hear?”

“Sure,” John said. He took the stethoscope from the Doctor’s offering hand and put the diaphragm against the Doctor’s chest. There is was, the one heart beat.

“Next try on the right,” the Doctor said.

John did, and he heard the exact same noise as before.

The Doctor watched and nodded when John’s eyes widened. “There! Probably good to get it checked up, it’s been ages since anyone’s made sure they were both in working order! Now! Two hearts,” he gestured down at his chest, “clearly an alien, any chance you have time for tea?”

“I just got in,” John said, feeling old and very slow for a moment.

“It’s about Sherlock,” the Doctor said.

John scribbled a note for Sarah (she’d understand) and then pulled his jacket back on.

“Let’s go,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John shook his head. “Sherlock Holmes isn’t an alien! I think I’d have noticed.”

John stared at the rows of dairy products before him. The Doctor leaned against the glass case.

“This isn’t tea,” he said. “I was hoping you might have biscuits.”    

John smiled in apology. “You said it was important we speak somewhere Sherlock would never find us.”

The Doctor nodded.

“Well, this is the milk aisle at Tesco’s…” John waited for the Doctor’s reaction. “Well. Sherlock won’t come here. Trust me.”

The Doctor shrugged. “Okay.” He was doing the pouting thing again, like he had done back when he had tried beer at the pub.

“We can get biscuits later,” John suggested. “I’m sure Mrs. Hudson has some back at the flat.”

The Doctor smiled and clapped his hands together once, rubbing them back and forth as he spoke. “Okay! Then I suppose I should tell you the truth.”

“This is about Sherlock?”

The Doctor nodded. The smile dropped off his face. “Very much so.”

“He’s not sick or anything?”

“No!”

John breathed a sigh of relief.

“He’s just not…well, John, he’s not _human._ Not originally, anyway.”

 _“What?”_ John said.

 An elderly woman carrying two tubs of ice cream turned to stare at them.

“Sorry!” John told her. He turned back to the Doctor, his voice lowered to his whisper. _“What?”_

“Well,” the Doctor seemed a bit offended, “he’s like me! I’m not so bad, am I? I’m very clever, you know.”

John shook his head. “Sherlock Holmes isn’t an alien! I think I’d have noticed.”

The Doctor nodded. “No no no, you couldn’t have noticed! You didn’t even know aliens existed, not your fault. You see the trouble is, the trouble is, John, that your friend hasn’t always been Sherlock Holmes. He used to be like me.”

Sherlock Holmes, the same as this man? With…two hearts, and a spaceship, and all sorts of other alien parts? John shivered, and it wasn’t only the chill from the freezer aisle. “I don’t believe you,” he said.

“Well, I didn’t either! The TARDIS was the one who sensed it, Sexy is rather good at these things. Last of the Time Lords, says who! No, she got one look at your Sherlock Holmes and bam! The gravity filter went _kablooey._ I suppose it is a rather _weighty_ subject! No, she was trying to tell me this was important, she sent me straight to you so I come and find the man who isn’t really a man—”

“Sorry,” John said. He wasn’t sorry, though. He had no qualms at all when it came to cutting off the Doctor’s rant. John had had quite enough of people calling Sherlock “inhuman.” Sherlock said the Doctor was an alien, fine. That didn’t stop him from also being a nutter. “Your _spaceship._ _Looked._ At Sherlock.”

“Well, she’s a slightly sentient spaceship, and she sensed that there was another—”

John tilted his head. “You have a slightly sentient spaceship?”

“Well, you have a fictional flatmate! I’m not judging _you,_ am I?” John stared at the Doctor. “Right. Sorry. Sorry, I’ve got it all wrong! Well, no, I’ve got it right, but it’s all coming out in the wrong order. It’s an awful lot of exposition to get through. But for you, for Dr. John Watson, the exposition needs to be in the proper order, in an order that makes sense. You see, it’s imperative to your life, to everything that you hold dear, that you understand what I am trying to explain.”

“I thought this was about Sherlock.”

“Oh, it is. He’s very important. But you, Doctor John Watson, you could very well be the most important man in the universe.”

The Doctor waited, John wasn’t exactly sure what for.

John just stared at him. He was _clearly_ a nutter. There was no other explanation. Certainly there wasn’t proof that Sherlock Holmes was a…well, whatever the Doctor was. He didn’t have two hearts, John knew that for a fact.

John didn’t know if he wanted to laugh hysterically or run away. He didn’t really want to hear more of this shite. Who would ever accuse Sherlock of having one heart too many?

The Doctor sighed, and pushed a hand through his hair. When he spoke again he spoke softly, like he was forcing something out of himself and he couldn’t waste any energy on the volume.  “You know we’re both soldiers, you and I. Survivors. There was a war throughout time, and I was the only one left. ‘The last of the Time Lords.’ But, oh, John, if you could have seen. Time Lords could hop between realities like _that,_ ” the Doctor snapped. “We travelled space and time in the bat of an eye, the flick of a wrist. Some of us wanted to save worlds, some to destroy them. There was one of us, though, who wanted only to learn about them.”

The Doctor took a deep breath. “None of us saw the Time War coming, none of us knew enough to run away. But if there’s anyone who knew enough to save themselves, it would have been him. There was a Time Lord, you could say an old _acquaintance_ of mine. This Time Lord was obsessed with knowledge and he would do anything to know even more. If he had a question, if anyone had a question, he would learn the answer, whether through observation or experimentation or negotiation or force.”

John smirked a little. This “acquaintance” sounded a fair bit like Sherlock when he had a mystery he couldn’t solve. He’d bet the Doctor had his hands full with this one.

“He called himself ‘The Genius.’ I believe he escaped the Time War by becoming a human. By creating a new human where there wasn’t one. You see…that’s who Sherlock used to be.”

John had to look away. He didn’t want to insult the Doctor by smirking at him. John had lost people too during the war; he’d had his own battles with PTSD. It didn’t seem fair to mock the Doctor for missing one of his old friends. But Sherlock? An alien? In what universe did that idea make any sense?

The Doctor stood next to John and grabbed John’s hand. John looked over, startled. He really didn’t want to offend the man. But he also really, really wasn’t interested.

“It’s hard to explain, because it’s a bit of a Time Lord thing. You know how you could recognize another soldier even if they were in fancy dress?”

John looked around. He hoped nobody else noticed them and got the wrong impression. Thank God, the aisle was barren. John looked back to the Doctor and nodded.

“Well, it’s nothing like that at all, really, it’s a very complex and scientific process involving nonlinear events and imprinting and Time Lord blood lines and all kinds of wibbly-wobbly things, and that _still_ isn’t enough to recognize him at very first sight, but you just imagine Sherlock as a soldier in fancy dress. I think that’ll see you through. Now!” he squeezed John’s hand. “I need you to do something for me. Close your eyes, just for a second.”

“What? Why?”

“I need you to imagine. But I’m going to…help you a little. Another Time Lord thing.”

John licked his lips. “Yeah. Okay.” He closed his eyes.

 “Okay!” the Doctor said, sounding pleased. “John, I want you to picture a moment with Sherlock at work. Sometime when he’s on a case, when he’s deducing someone and the words spill out of him, how it’s almost like magic, like he’s just too incredible to be believed. Think hard and give me a moment when he’s more brilliant than anything else you’ve ever seen.”

John nodded. He pictured Sherlock on a case, on “A Study in Pink,” when he stood in the stairwell and realized the crime scene was missing the most important piece, that the killer had stolen Jennifer Wilson’s suitcase. He remembered Sherlock tiny in the stairwell below him, and how all the energy in the room seemed to be collected in his single, brilliant mind, the one man in the room inexplicably shouting “Pink!” John remembered how he had no idea what was going on and how that killed him, how he needed to know more than anything, just because Sherlock was beginning to know. Oftentimes John felt content to help Sherlock be clever, to determine a cause of death or defend Sherlock when necessary. But to this day John remembers wishing more than anything that he could be on the inside of Sherlock’s mind, looking out. Just that once, to know what it was like. He remembered Sherlock shouting, waving his hands, having ideas right, left and centre. And John realized he couldn’t let this brilliant man go.

“That’s fantastic,” the Doctor said softly. “That will do just fine. But now I need you to try to imagine something even bigger, even madder. I need you to imagine Sherlock like that _every single moment,_ always too brilliant, through all of space and time.”

John gasped at the images filling his brain. They weren’t concrete pictures, exactly; it wasn’t that he could see anything at all. Sherlock normally shone so brightly, sometimes watching him work was like looking into the sun. John sometimes had this distant sense that his life would be far healthier, and far safer, if he could only learn how to look away. If what the Doctor was saying was really true, then all this time he’d only seen Sherlock with sunglasses on. Because now he imagined Sherlock as the Genius. Sherlock with a slightly sentient spaceship, Sherlock with two hearts in his chest and the ability to travel anywhere, see everything. Sherlock solving crimes across the galaxy, Sherlock _controlling time._ Not Sherlock the man, though maybe he would look like one. Not even Sherlock the alien, but Sherlock the god. John would bet he’d be bloody infuriating, too.

He felt like he has been blinded. Like he couldn’t see straight anymore. He didn’t want to open his eyes.

“There’s a device on the TARDIS,” the Doctor said. “A Chameleon Arch. It converts Time Lord DNA into human DNA. Flip a few switches, put on a funny hat, and _bam,_ human. That’s how Sherlock Holmes is here in 2010 London. New body, new friends, but it’s him all right.”

 _But_ —John opened his eyes. “He would have told me,” John said, but even as he said the words he wondered. Occasionally he felt he hardly knew his flatmate at all…

“He couldn’t tell you; he doesn’t even know. That’s why he always carries a fob watch, you must have noticed it, it contains the all Time Lord-y bits of him. If you open the watch, he’ll remember everything.”

John breathed a sigh of relief. He let go of the Doctor’s hand—he hadn’t realized he was still holding on to it—and put his own hand into his pocket. “That’s that, then. I’m sorry about your friend, Doctor. But there’s definitely been a mix-up. Sherlock doesn’t have a fob watch.”

“He must. Maybe he’s never shown it to you. But I promise you, Sherlock is never without this watch. He doesn’t know it’s anything special. He won’t even want to open it, not even if you were to ask. That’s the Time Lord technology, called a perception filter. But you have to find the watch, John. Please.”

John shrugged. “Okay,” he said. Why not? He’d search a bit. He wouldn’t find anything. He’d be able to convince the Doctor that Sherlock was normal and they’d all go on their merry ways.

“Now, when you find the watch, and this is very, very important, John, the most important bit. Do not open it.”

“What?” John frowned. “Why not?”

John watched the Doctor, pulled out the green torch and fiddled with it. He didn’t seem to want to look John in the eyes.

The Doctor shoved the torch back into his pocket and grabbed John by the shoulders. He bent down to shove his forehead against John’s. “John H. Watson. If you open the watch, you wouldn’t be helping Sherlock. Not at all. Not one bit. Once you find it, you must never, ever open Sherlock’s fob watch, do you understand me?”

“Why not?” John wasn’t even sure why he was pressing the question. The watch wasn’t real, and Sherlock wasn’t secretly an alien, certainly not one with two hearts. John could see how some kind of outsider would make that mistake; Sherlock certainly had his off moments where he ignored the rest of humanity. And he had those piercing eyes, those bloody cheekbones. But a few oddities didn’t add up to alien. No, Sherlock Holmes wasn’t any kind of alien, not any kind of machine. He was human through and through.

But the Doctor was still speaking; still explaining Sherlock’s alien aspects. Well, the Doctor was _wrong._

“The moment he opens that watch, the moment he so much as takes a peek, he won’t be Sherlock anymore. The Chameleon Arch does more than make you human; it makes you a new person. The Genius will still remember being Sherlock, he’ll remember you and the crimes and every moment you spent together, but that’s it. He won’t be Sherlock, not ever again.”

“Sherlock Holmes has a brother,” John remembered aloud. “I’ve heard about his childhood. It doesn’t matter, Doctor, because you’re wrong.”

The Doctor frowned. “Oh! He does, doesn’t he! That’s very interesting.”

John finally snapped. “No! It isn’t bloody interesting. It’s not evidence or exposition or whatever you’ll call it!  It’s proof. That’s it. Now.”

John grabbed a milk carton, because they needed milk, always, and with his other hand he pushed the Doctor’s back straight out of the grocery aisle.

It wasn’t a very John-like gesture. It was very rude. Actually, it was very _Sherlock_ of him.

John thought the manoeuvre worked incredibly well.

 

 

John went straight back to the clinic. He put the milk in the communal fridge and hoped no one would use it for their afternoon tea. He chatted awkwardly with Sarah, he saw patients. He tried his best to forget everything the Doctor had said to him. It didn’t matter; not a word of it was true.

John lost himself in the usual routine as best he could. But then, when it came time to leave he found Sarah and asked if he could take another shift. He told her he wanted to make up for taking the morning off. She stared at him for a bit before she shook her head.

“No, John,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you look like you should to go home. We have more than enough people on staff tonight.”

John sighed, accepting defeat. That was the trouble with amicably ending things with your superior, wasn’t it? He couldn’t start a fight with Sarah, not for a few more hours of work, not even if it meant going home a flat filled with awkward silence and meant not being able to look Sherlock in the eye.

As his taxi approached Baker Street, John realized he had been worried about all the wrong things.

He watched out the window as the blue box, the _sentient spaceship,_ slid into view. John couldn’t ignore the way his insides twisted at the idea of the Doctor inside their flat. What was he telling Sherlock? What _wasn’t_ the Doctor telling Sherlock? Was he going through their things, right now? And the tiny, burning question that John didn’t even want to ask—had he found a watch? He caught a glimpse of himself reflected in the taxi window. A frown creased his face—and as he watched the frown only deepened.  

He paid the driver, unlocked the door, and ran up the steps into the flat. He pushed open the door to see Sherlock lounging on the sofa and the Doctor standing next to him. Funny, there was a chair, right there.

John wondered if the Doctor was standing because it was easier to investigate the flat that way. Sherlock was holding something in his hands, stroking it like a baby bird.

“Impossible to keep up a smoking habit in London these days,” Sherlock told the Doctor. “But tempting…This is very nice.”

The Doctor nodded and kind of bounced on his heels. “It’s an antique.”

“Though I don’t imagine you hunted through antique shops to get this. No, of course not. Why would you, when you can simply travel back in time and pick it up fresh?”

 “Oh, I like a little shop! But no, I had this lying around. Call it a personal favourite.”  

“Hm,” Sherlock said. John waited for the sulk that came on whenever Sherlock deduced incorrectly, but it never came. Sherlock just looked down at the object and nodded. “I can see why,” he said.

“Go on, then. Try it out!”

Sherlock moved his hands a bit and John could see he was cradling a mahogany smoking pipe.

John cleared his throat. “I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said. He glared at the intruder, who glanced at John almost bashfully, clearly feeling guilty over his attempt to…what, to bribe Sherlock? “You gave him a _pipe?_ What kind of a Doctor are you?”

The skin around the Doctor’s eyes creased and he broke out with a grin. “Oh! I think we should let him try it, don’t you?”

John said, “no” at the same time Sherlock said “yes!” Sherlock stood, pipe still in hand, and set about looking for tobacco from his ash analysis. John grabbed the pipe from Sherlock’s hands as he rushed past.

Sherlock turned back to stand by John, to tower over him as best he could. “Really, John?” he murmured.

“I just don’t think we should trust the Doctor,” John whispered back. “Like you said, we don’t know who he works for.”

“He’s the Doctor,” Sherlock said dismissively. He spoke the words as if that was some kind of sufficient explanation. John stared back.

When had this happened? When had Sherlock gone and bloody fallen in love with the alien? Because last time John checked, the detective had been going for the Doctor with a syringe!

John felt the pipe being tugged out of his hands. The Doctor popped it into his mouth.

“Oh! _Oh_ ,” the Doctor said, shaping his words around the pipe, “I can’t ever let Jack ever get near the two of you. He would try to kiss you, or…well, kiss you!” The Doctor nodded, sealed his mouth around the pipe and puffed.

A series of bubbles rose from the pipe. John glanced over at Sherlock, who stared open-mouthed at his new alien idol. He seemed to be in shock.

The Doctor smiled around the pipe. “See?” he said. “Isn’t it _fun?_ ”

 “It blows bubbles,” Sherlock said slowly.

John held in a giggle. Barely.

“You need a pipe, Sherlock Holmes! Like I told you, it is an antique. Also, very good at a party!”

Mrs. Hudson wandered in from the kitchen. She carried a tray with three cups of tea and biscuits. “Not too many, now,” she said as she put the tray down. “Shouldn’t ruin your appetite, boys. It’s nearly dinnertime.”

The Doctor stuffed the pipe in his pocket, sat on the sofa, and scrambled for a Jammie Dodger. “Oh, you have this kind! I love this kind!” He bit into the biscuit, his grin wide.

Mrs. Hudson offered the Doctor an indulgent smile before turning to John. “Hello, John, how was work today?”

John tried to simultaneously smile convincingly and forget all about his impossible-to-forget discussion from the morning. “It was fine, Mrs. Hudson,” he said.

“All right, you boys just shout if you need anything. Pleasure meeting you, Doctor.”

The Doctor wiped his mouth free of crumbs and stood to kiss her cheeks. “Yes! You too!” He held up a homemade biscuit. “This is a _lovely_ spread, Mrs. Hudson.”

The landlady blushed. “Thank you, dear. Just shout.” Then she left.

The Doctor looked at Sherlock, considering. “Maybe we can get you a little cape,” he told Sherlock.

John waited for Sherlock’s cutting response. But the detective just shrugged and stooped down to pick up his tea. “I’m quite pleased with my coat,” he said.

“Yes,” the Doctor said. “I can see why. It does that nice _swirly_ thing. I do like a swirly coat. I have one of those myself!”

This was just too weird.

John grabbed Sherlock’s arm. Sherlock turned and watched John, eyes narrowing as he tried to deduce the problem.

“Sherlock,” John whispered. “Can I speak to you alone? Maybe in the hallway.”

Sherlock kept staring at John. He couldn’t _deduce_ John’s discussion with the Doctor, could he? Sherlock nodded, still looking uncertain, and John issued a sigh of relief.

“Doctor,” Sherlock said, and nodded to the door.

John rolled his eyes. “No, Sherlock, I meant we could go…Oh, fine,” he muttered as the Doctor nodded, stood, grabbed a few biscuits, and left the flat.

John went to the kitchen, trying to move somewhere the sound wouldn’t carry out to the hall. Sherlock followed.

John sat down at the table, next to Sherlock’s latest experiment. He licked his lips. “Um,” John said. He wasn’t sure what the best way was to phrase his thoughts. Maybe there just wasn’t a good way. “Has the Doctor been here long?”

“No,” Sherlock said. He watched John expectantly.

“Just…has he been looking through your things at all? Did he search in your pockets or anything?”

Sherlock stared at him like John has just suggested Sherlock should write thank you notes, or drop a case about a serial killer. 

“John,” Sherlock said slowly. “Are you…feeling okay?” He looked distinctly uncomfortable at the words. John tried not to flinch under Sherlock’s gaze.

“Yes,” John offered. “Yeah, Sherlock, I’m fine.” John felt exhausted. It was hopeless; he knew that. Sherlock would figure out what was wrong. He wondered if Sherlock would actually be able to guess. It didn’t seem likely, given the preposterous nature of the conversation, but then again this was Sherlock. John watched his friend’s roving eyes. He held his breath.

“You’ve been to Tesco’s,” Sherlock said. “You didn’t bring anything back.”

“Yeah...” John had completely forgotten to grab the milk from the clinic’s fridge. “Nothing was on sale.”

“We need milk,” Sherlock said. Then he frowned. “You bought milk, didn’t you? Something happened. Did you throw it out?”

John sighed. “It doesn’t really matter, Sherlock.”

“But it doesn’t make any sense!”

John smiled a little at Sherlock’s frustration. Despite John’s attempts to lose himself in work, Sherlock’s pouting now was the first time all day that anything had seemed normal, much less _right._ John hadn’t realized he was so co-dependent on Sherlock Holmes—the thought was a little bit unnerving.

“We needed milk at the clinic, Sherlock.”

“Oh,” Sherlock said. He fiddled with the cuff of his sleeve.

“I suppose we can invite the Doctor back in, then,” John said. He didn’t exactly have further questions he could ask, not unless he wanted to give Sherlock any more incentive to deduce what had really happened at Tesco’s.

Sherlock nodded excitedly and walked back to the living room. John sighed and followed behind. “I want to ask him about a few of the cold cases,” Sherlock said. “At the time I couldn’t see any way the murders could have been committed, but alien technologies open a whole new realm of possibilities! An unlikely realm, granted. I severely doubt we’ve encountered aliens before. Did you know, John, that the Doctor is the last of his kind?” Sherlock sat back down on the sofa.

John sat down next to Sherlock, half holding his breath. He didn’t dare nod.

“You can come in, Doctor!” Sherlock shouted at the closed door.

Honestly, Sherlock was just like a child, John reflected. For some reason he smiled anyway.

“Excellent!” the Doctor said as he re-entered. “Biscuits go much better with tea, don’t they? Marvellous stuff!” He grabbed a cup from Mrs. Hudson’s tray.

“Doctor,” John said. “I think you ought to tell us what you’re doing here.” John could feel Sherlock watching him, probably making new deductions by the second. John wasn’t usually rude, that had to give Sherlock something to work from. John gripped the edge of the sofa and tried to tell himself he didn’t care.

The Doctor smiled. “Just making a house call.” He grinned a little. “I am the _Doctor,_ after all.”

“You’re not mine,” Sherlock said. His tone held no animosity, but it also held no room for argument. When John looked at Sherlock, shocked by his words as well as his mood swing, he nearly gasped aloud.

The detective’s eyes, already trained on him, held absolute trust, and the tiniest bit of warmth.

John felt himself relax against the sofa, his arm brushing Sherlock’s as he did. He a felt kind of warmth seep through his body, even though he hadn’t had any tea yet. He hoped he wasn’t blushing or anything. It was only that Sherlock didn’t say things like that.

When John finally managed to look away from Sherlock he saw that the Doctor was smiling again, just a touch.

“No, Jack’s not allowed here at all,” the Doctor muttered to himself. He cleared his throat. “I’m here to speak to John, actually.” The Doctor said. “I owe him a present, too.”

Sherlock huffed. “A present? You have access to vast alien technological resources, not to mention the ability to travel in time, and you brought me a human children’s toy.” Sherlock frowned in that way that John recognized completely. “Which you then took back!”

“Oh! Sorry about that,” the Doctor handed Sherlock the pipe again. “I’ve found the right toy to be very handy on occasion—saved my life once or twice! Besides, I never said it wasn’t alien.”

Sherlock stared down at the pipe as if seeing it anew. He turned it slowly in his hands, probably searching for alien features.

The Doctor pulled something small from his pocket and handed it to John. “Here,” he said. He seemed rather pleased with himself. “Now, I imagine you’ll find this very useful!”

John looked down at the object in his palm. “It’s a kazoo,” he said. It was also hot pink.

“It’s not a kazoo,” the Doctor cried. “Well it is, a kazoo, obviously it’s a kazoo, but it’s not just any kazoo.” He paused to take a deep breath. “It’s a _space kazoo!”_

“Um,” John said. “Thanks?” He glanced at Sherlock, who was eyeing the hot pink toy with definite interest.

“Oh, that’s just unfair,” Sherlock told the Doctor.

The Doctor grinned. “It is good, isn’t it?” He took the kazoo back from John. “Just blow this,” he tooted once on the kazoo, “and I’ll come running. Maybe even literally!” He handed it back to John.

“Not to be abused. For emergencies only,” the Doctor said. He watched John carefully, and John knew he wasn’t talking about John and Sherlock’s usual emergencies where they were moments away from death because Sherlock texted a serial killer with _an invitation to their flat_. “Do you understand?”

John nodded. “Can’t imagine we’ll be needing it,” he said.

The Doctor shrugged. “Better safe than sorry,” he said. John felt rather tempted to punch the man.

The Doctor stood. Oddly enough, Sherlock followed suit. Sherlock even offered the Doctor his hand to shake. The Doctor pushed Sherlock’s hand aside and grabbed Sherlock for a hug.

John sighed and stood as well. The Doctor let go of Sherlock and grabbed John. “Look after him,” he whispered in John’s ear. “That’s all I’m asking, really.” He let his head fall onto John’s shoulder. “God,” The Doctor said. “I really need to stop saying that. I need to stop _needing_ to say that!”

He pulled back and patted John’s chest a little. “And don’t be afraid to call. Or kazoo!” he said. He shut the door behind him.

Sherlock ran to the window, his dead body smile firmly in place as he watched the Doctor go to the box, shut the door, and vanish away. Once the whooshing sound had faded Sherlock turned back to John, still grinning.

“Would you like to know the best part?” Sherlock asked.

John shook his head, trying to hide his own amused smirk. It was just so very Sherlock, wasn’t it? “You’re going to have to give it back,” John said.

“Give what back?” Sherlock said carefully.

John rolled his eyes. “I saw you nick the Doctor’s MI6 ID while he hugged you.”

Sherlock nodded. “Your observation skills are getting better, John. I’m impressed.” John felt himself puff up at the praise.

Sherlock pulled out the small black rectangle and flipped it through his fingers.

“Sherlock…” John said. Obviously they needed to give it back. Wouldn’t do to condone his flatmate’s penchant for petty theft. Even if it was amusing at times.

“Don’t call the Doctor back yet,” Sherlock said, carefully watching John. “Give me twelve hours.”

John sighed. “I suppose if you weren’t going to sleep anyway…” Hopefully the Doctor could live for a bit without his ID. If he really needed it John was certain the man would return. “I’m going to order takeaway. You want any?” He glanced over at Sherlock. Naturally the detective wasn’t listening at all, too busy examining the ID.

“Oh, this is _excellent,”_ Sherlock said with a grin.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The Genius was also very, very careful. Tremendously so. You mentioned Sherlock’s brother at the supermarket the other day. It got me thinking, why choose Sherlock Holmes at all?"

John stared at the frankly underwhelming walls of his room. They’d been underwhelming for the past four hours now, and they weren’t getting any more interesting as time went on. But it wasn’t as if John had a better alternative. He couldn’t sleep. He had spent all day trying not to think about his secret conversation with the Doctor, but now it seemed the memory—and the Doctor’s orders—came back with a vengeance.

John liked to think his moral compass would steer him straight. After all, between the army, the clinic, and basically every minute he spent with Sherlock on a crime scene, John had seen his fair share of ethical dilemmas. But he honestly didn’t know what he would do if he found out that Sherlock really was…well. Like the Doctor. Or rather that he had been like the Doctor, and he could be again.

John wasn’t blind to the fact that Sherlock got bored very, very easily. Easily enough, at least, that sometimes John worried Sherlock was moments away from relapsing and doing drugs again. Maybe the problem wasn’t that Sherlock’s mind was too busy for this world—maybe it’s that this world wasn’t busy enough for Sherlock.

Then again, even if any of this was to be believed, the Doctor had said the clever people were all gone now, all but the Doctor. The Time War. John’s eyes widened at the thought. Maybe there wasn’t any relief for Sherlock, in human form or…not.

Not that any of this was true, of course. Not that any of it was even _possible._

John wondered if Sherlock would find out that he might be an alien. He wondered if Sherlock _was_ an alien. He wondered if anything was ever going to make sense, ever again.

John didn’t bother wondering when he would fall asleep; that was clearly never going to happen.

John turned over and stared at the other, equally boring wall. Well, almost as boring. But this wall also contained the doorway that led downstairs. He sighed and pulled himself out of bed. He had promised the Doctor he would look for the watch...might as well settle this once and for all.

He walked down to the living room, where Sherlock usually left his coat. The Doctor said Sherlock kept the fob watch on him at all times, so it seemed like a logical place to start. All the same, the idea of John poking around Sherlock’s things—of John Watson attempting to investigatehis brilliant flatmate—seemed utterly ridiculous, not to mention a complete invasion of privacy. Then again, Sherlock hacked into John’s computer all the time. Clearly privacy wasn’t the biggest issue for Sherlock.

But when John made his way downstairs he realized he wouldn’t be investigating anything at all, because Sherlock was still awake. Sherlock lay on the sofa. He was opening, reading, and closing the Doctor’s ID again and again at a furious pace.

“What,” John joked, “expecting to find something new?”

Sherlock turned his head in John’s direction. He squinted for a second, deducing. Then he tossed the ID to John.

“Open that,” Sherlock said. “Tell me what you see.”

John groaned. “Are you going to make me deduce again? I always feel like an idiot.”

“That’s because you are an idiot,” Sherlock said, but as he spoke his lips quirked in a way that contained equal parts affection and pity for John’s lacking mental facilities.

Sherlock wasn’t an alien. How could he be? The Doctor had it wrong, and so did Donovan: Sherlock Holmes was utterly, obnoxiously human.

He nodded at the black case in John’s hands. “What do you see?”

John opened the case and stared down at the plastic card. “John Smith,” he read. “Where do you think he got this?” Somehow he doubted that was the Doctor’s real name. “The government? You don’t think Mycroft knows about him, do you?” Now there was a nightmare that John hadn’t imagined.

“Oh, John,” Sherlock said. He didn’t say _Idiot!,_ but John saw it plainly spelled out across his features.  “Is that really all you see?”

John looked at the ID again. “Um,” he said. “Yes?”

“I wonder if I can….John. Close that.”

John did.

“John, the Doctor is also a card-carrying member of the FBI,” Sherlock said.

“Oh?” John said.

“Yes. It’s a…a trick ID. Try flipping it over and opening it. You’ll see the FBI ID instead.”

John flipped the case over and opened it up.

“Wow,” he said. There it was. _Special Agent John Smith._

“Do you see it?” Sherlock sounded excited. John glanced at Sherlock and noticed the detective had moved to upright. “The card says FBI?”

“Yeah,” John said. “Wow. How many of these do you think he has?”

“Infinite amounts,” Sherlock said. “It’s blank.”

“What?” John glanced back at the card. “No it’s not.”

Sherlock brought his hands together just under his chin. “Of course it’s not. No, the blank paper fills up with whatever you want to see. Like a digital screen running off some kind of brain waves. If I think about it right, I can access all sorts of interesting information.”

John closed the ID, opened it again. “I just see MI6,” he shrugged. “And FBI.”

Sherlock made a small, frustrated noise. “Give it back, then,” he said, “since you’re clearly not going to find a use for it.”

John handed back the card.

He stood about for a bit as Sherlock went back to examining the ID. It was as though John hadn’t walked into the room at all. John wondered what Sherlock was learning from the card. Would he—could he—learn about the Doctor’s theory?

Feeling awkward and anxious and powerless, John turned and walked out of the room. Just as he hit the stairs up to his bedroom Sherlock called out.

“John! Wait a minute, I need you to send a text.”

John didn’t bother rolling his eyes. Rather he felt his entire body relax at the simplicity of the command. Sherlock had no idea, but it was the best possible thing his flatmate could have said. After a day of aliens and fob watches, nothing in John’s life felt more familiar than Sherlock ordering him to send a text. Maybe that was a bit pathetic, but it was the truth.

“My phone’s upstairs,” John said.

Sherlock didn’t look away from the ID. “Mine’s on the table.”

Meaning about two inches away from Sherlock, of course; significantly further away from John.

“Right,” John said. He made his way back to the sofa, grabbing the phone before he sat down in the armchair. “What do you want me to send?”

“The contact’s already in there, under ‘Stevenson.’ Tell her that her blind date wasn’t interested in stealing her identity to commit fraud. Why would he? He’s her brother.”

John smiled as he typed out the message and signed it with an “SH.” Then he exited out of the texting program, and his breath stopped short.

“Sherlock,” he said. He spoke quietly. Slowly. “What’s this?”

“I realize I’ve picked it up recently,” Sherlock’s voice was full of disdain. John didn’t look up from the phone to check Sherlock’s expression. He couldn’t. “But iPhones aren’t exactly new inventions. Surely you’ve seen one before.”

John could feel his heartbeat. “No…” he said. He tried to focus. “I mean. This little button. Inside the phone. Purple? The one with a watch in the centre.”

The Doctor’s words came back to him. _Sherlock is never without this watch. He doesn’t know it’s anything special._

 “It’s an _app,_ John. Honestly.” John glanced up. Sherlock hadn’t even bothered looking over. Good.

“What’s it for?”

“It contains information on rare, antique watches. Their makes, their makers, that sort of thing.  I installed it on my old phone as well; thought it might well prove necessary in a case.”

“Has it?” John asked, though he could guess Sherlock’s answer. It wasn’t actually an answer John wanted to hear.

 “I know it’s late, John, but I’d hope even at this hour you’d be able to remember if we’ve ever had a case involving an antique watch.”

“So that’s a ‘no,’ then.”

Sherlock nodded, his eyes still focused on the Doctor’s card. “Thus far.”

John breathed out carefully, shakily. _Thus far._ His fingers hovered over the button. If this was it, if this was what the Doctor was talking about…

John took a deep breath.

If the Doctor was right, then pressing his finger against that little purple square would change everything in his entire world. Shatter it to the ground.

John had hoped his moral compass would steer him straight, and all of a sudden, there it was, the clear answer. He knew the right thing to do.

If he pushed the button and nothing happened, fine. But if he opened the app, it wouldn’t be only his world that would change. Quite the opposite.

 _Not_ pushing the button, lying to Sherlock about the button, seemed utterly selfish. If they were really dating like everyone else thought, if they were in love, then maybe everything would be different. But as it stood John didn’t have any claim to Sherlock’s life, not beyond that of a best mate. John didn’t have the right to hold his friend back. Any idiot could see that Sherlock was stifled here.

After all, didn’t Sherlock deserve a new world, a much bigger one? Didn’t he deserve the universe?

 

John squinted at what appeared to be a line on a rock.

“Nope,” he said. “I don’t see it.”

The Doctor pouted, then pointed to the glass case again. “No no, that’s clearly me.” He gestured to his own profile. “Clearly!”

John squinted at the rock again, then shrugged. “Sorry.”

“Well, I suppose nobody said Hammurabi was a very good artist…” the Doctor moved to the next case. “Wrong! Wrong!” he said, pointing to the various labels. “Ooh! Wrong, but very interesting.”

“Doctor,” John said. He stood waiting next to “Hammurabi’s” rock—which was, for the record, labelled anonymous. “I contacted you to give back your ID card—”

“Psychic paper!”

“...Right, okay. But why are we here?”  

The Doctor took one look at John and then nodded a little, almost to himself. He reached out and took John’s hand.

“Come with me,” the Doctor said, and led John out of the room, into the large atrium of the British Museum. He pulled John up the winding stairs. John followed, feeling more than a little uncomfortable. As they wound through further galleries, past Celtic jewellery and quivers of ancient arrows, he spoke up. “Doctor, I think you should know…”

The Doctor stopped short and turned to John. “Yes?”

“I’m not gay.”

The Doctor stared down at their joined hands. “Oh!” he said. He took his hand back, stared at it for a moment, and then tucked it back into his trouser pocket. “Old habit,” he said, gesturing a bit helplessly with this free hand. “Doesn’t bother most people...or aliens…” The Doctor glanced around him for a moment, then turned around and started walking again. “Nearly there!” he shouted backwards.

John hoped he hadn’t offended the man. Er. Alien.

They reached the entrance to a new gallery, this one full of clocks, and the Doctor stopped once more. He turned backwards to look at John. “You can tell me, you know,” he said softly.

John shrugged self-consciously. Of course the Doctor wouldn’t believe him. Why should he? Nobody else seemed to. “I mean. I’m really not, though. I don’t fancy random blokes I pass on the street, or anything, you know?”

The Doctor stared at John. He stared rather thoroughly, even going on his tiptoes for a moment to peer down at John’s head.

“It’s just,” John said as the Doctor examined him. “I know you’ve probably assumed, with me and Sherlock. And there really isn’t. Well. Nothing’s happened. Happening! I mean, if he’s a,” John lowered his voice to a whisper, “ _Time Lord_ , then that’s a whole new…Er.” He shook his head. How’d they get on this subject again? “We’re just mates,” he said.

“Did you bring the watch with you?” the Doctor said. “Sherlock’s fob watch.”

“No. He doesn’t have a watch.” John had summoned the Doctor to give back the ID card, after all. Nothing more.

“When you find it,” the Doctor said, “you can tell me,” he smiled a little. “That’s what I wanted to say, before.” Before John could so much as blush, the Doctor cried out, “Now!” and walked a wall of pocket watches displayed behind a glass case.

John shivered. He wondered if the Doctor suspected John had lied to him. Well, not lied, exactly, but close enough.

“I want to show you something,” the Doctor said. He pointed to one of the open watches. “This was mine,” he said. “It probably doesn’t look like much. It’s just an ordinary watch now, but this watch once kept me human.”

John read the label. _Fob watch, 1913._ The display included a long history of the watch and its owner, Tim Latimer. Was that the Doctor’s name when he was human? But the description included the date of Latimer’s death, so perhaps not. _The watch was likely custom-made from a local craftsman. The origins of its intricate designs remain unknown._

“Not that long ago, actually,” the Doctor said. He shrugged. “Only a lifetime.” John would have expected the statement to sound melodramatic, but the Doctor spoke of the “lifetime” as though it had occurred last week. For the first time, John wondered how old the Doctor really was. He looked like he was in his twenties, but sometimes, like now, his voice suggested otherwise. He sounded sad, almost. He looked at John. “I know so much about the Chameleon Arch because I used it, once. I needed it. It kept me _safe,_ just the way his fob watch keepsSherlock safe.”

“Did you like being human?” John asked, trying to steer talk away from Sherlock. Even if he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Sherlock, at least the Doctor could talk of something else.

“Being human was…nice,” the Doctor said. “Simpler.”

“But would you choose it, if you could?”

The Doctor turned to John with the tiniest smile. “Not for anything,” he confessed.

John nodded as the Doctor turned back to the display. If John had told Sherlock about the watch like he had meant to last night, like he should have, he imagined he would have received a similar response. Between Sherlock’s life with John at 221B and the chance of another life for Sherlock, even a life as someone else, where he could satisfy every inch of his ruthless curiosity, John was well aware which option his mate would choose.

John hadn’t frozen the night before. He had simply handed the iPhone back to Sherlock, gone up to his room, and gone back to staring at the wall. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he woke up that morning so he must have done at some point. John hadn’t frozen, but he had certainly panicked.

John was good in a time of crisis. He rarely panicked. John sighed and turned back to the display of antique watches. If only this were a time of crisis, or a war zone. If only this were a situation John knew how to fight.

John examined the Doctor’s watch, trying to figure out exactly what made it seem so different from the others surrounding it. There was something about the open watch, the symbols inscribed behind the numbers—he’d seen those symbols before...

“Sherlock doesn’t have a watch,” John said. He winced as the words came out. So much for keeping secrets. But then, maybe John needed to tell _someone_ the truth, even if he couldn’t bring himself to tell Sherlock just yet. It wasn’t as though he could get Lestrade drunk and confess to him about the watch app, about Time Lords and TARDISes. Even if John wanted to, where would he even begin?

And John supposed, on the upside, that the Doctor couldn’t make things any worse...he didn’t even want John to open the “watch.” And if the Doctor meant to confiscate the app….Well. John smirked a little at the thought. He couldn’t help it. He’d like to see the Doctor _try_ to take that phone away from Sherlock.

No, John couldn’t think up a good reason to hide the truth from the Doctor. He hoped he was right.

“Sherlock doesn’t have a watch,” John said. “He has an app.”

“No, Sherlock Holmes definitely has a— _what?_ ” The Doctor turned to face John.

“In his phone, a little purple square with a watch on it. I found it last night. It has to be his watch, like you said. I mean,” He pointed to the Doctor’s fob watch. “The watch has got little lines on it, too, just like those.”

 “An app? Where’s the sense of tradition?” The Doctor cried. “Oh, sure, it’s _clever,_ but a _phone?_ Oh, that’s no good at all! At all! Watches are classic! Watches,” he gestured to the pocket watches, as if John hadn’t seen them already, “are _cool!_ ” He turned back to John. “It’s in his _phone?”_

 John stared at the Doctor. He frowned. “Yeah,” he said, “I’ve just told you that you’re absolutely right, that Sherlock Holmes is actually an alien, and you’re upset he doesn’t have a proper fob watch like the rest of you?”

“Yes!”

John turned back to the watches, eyes wide. He shook his head slowly, eying the Doctor’s put-out reflection in the glass. “I’m just worried for when Lestrade shows us a crime with an old watch in it,” he eventually muttered, nodding to the case. “Sherlock thinks it’s an app with information about old watches. We’ve been lucky so far, but the moment we have a case involving a fob watch it Sherlock will open the app.”

“You won’t.” John wondered that the Doctor spoke such certainty. “Not if the Genius has anything to say about it.”

John’s stomach sank down to his toes. He spoke low and fast. “I thought he couldn’t have anything to say about it. I thought you said that while Sherlock is here the Genius was gone.” He leaned toward the Doctor. “Isn’t he gone?”

The Doctor moved on to examine a grandfather clock that towered over both of them.

“Of course he is! You’re John Watson, he’s Sherlock Holmes. You’d know if you were living with anyone else, wouldn’t you?”

John nodded. Right. Of course he would. He knew Sherlock better than anyone, except maybe Sherlock's family. Of course he’d notice if Sherlock wasn’t acting himself.

“Wrong!” the Doctor cried, pointing to the caption on the timepiece. Then he whirled back to John. “He’s gone, yes, but the Genius was also very, very careful. Tremendously so. You mentioned Sherlock’s brother at the supermarket the other day. It got me thinking, why choose Sherlock Holmes at all? The Genius chose this story deliberately. The Chameleon Arch is clever but it isn’t clever enough to turn a Time Lord into another author’s character! The Genius wasn’t exactly a patient Time Lord, yet reprogramming the Chameleon Arch would’ve taken him months. You see, Chameleon Arches are finicky things, slightly sentient means tricky to control, at least to this extent. And, John, it’s a big, big, big, big, big extent! Doyle’s world has an infrastructure. Multiple characters, locations, motifs, archetypes. All the good stuff!  Sherlock Holmes is classic literature for a reason. How could The Genius know his new, human world would fit all that? Which is when I _realized,_ ” he said to John, who frankly hadn’t understood a word the Doctor uttered after ‘Sherlock’s brother,’ “the Genius constructed the ultimate trap. He knew he needed to keep himself safe, and he knew just how clever he was. Maybe he thought he would untangle the loose ends of an average Time-Lord-to-human conversion. False human in the real world, there are always quirks. But fiction is very powerful, _fiction was his solution_. Stories have all the pieces to mimic life, and great stories can feel even more real than life itself. Oh no, John Watson, the Genius didn’t just make himself. He made something a whole lot bigger.”

“Er,” John said. “What?”

“Well…” the Doctor said. “Let’s put it this way. What do you know about Sherlock’s childhood?”

“Um,” John said. “He solved mysteries.He and Mycroft grew up with their mum, I’d imagine.”

“Yes! Very powerful thing, the imagination.”

“You aren’t…Are you saying Sherlock’s childhood is imagined? As in, not real?” John wanted to laugh aloud at the absurdity of it. If he didn’t laugh, he didn’t know what else he would do. “I don’t think Mycroft would take that news very well.”

“No, I’d imagine not,” the Doctor said, his tone far more serious than John liked. John would have preferred him to be cracking jokes about biscuits any day. “People don’t generally enjoy learning that their family members aren’t real. Or that they’re not real.”

“You can’t seriously be telling me Mycroft Holmes isn’t real,” John felt ridiculous even saying the words aloud.

“Greg Lestrade told me he met Sherlock in 2005.” The Doctor stared at John. “That’s the same year I returned to this planet. Right after the Time War.” The Doctor nodded slowly. “Lots of things happened that year. Busy, busy year.”

“So what?” John knew he was being rude, but he wished the Doctor would just get on with it.

“I don’t think Lestrade could have met Sherlock before then. If my theory is right, then Sherlock Holmes, the human, didn’t actually _exist_ before 2005.”

“But…” John sputtered. “But what about Mycroft? And their mum? And, oh, Carl Powers! He’s a boy who died when Sherlock was a kid. Sherlock knew something was off about the case. I’ve spoken to the boy’s mum. I know Carl Powers was definitely real. His death was real.” The Doctor looked pointedly at the clock in front of them. “Wasn’t it?”

“It’s a bit complicated, John. Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey. Because once you were all here, here you stayed. Think of it like this—”

“Stop.” John couldn’t wait for Doctor to finish another long, incomprehensible rant. Not if he had just head the man correctly. “What do you mean, ‘you were all here?’”

“Well everyone had to come from somewhere. Sherlock came from the Genius. And you can’t have Sherlock Holmes without a Lestrade, without a Mycroft, without. Well. Hah. Well...”

“What?” John said. The Doctor stared at him.

John knew what was coming next. It wasn’t even a question. Ever since he’d met the Doctor, the man had always said the names practically in tandem—Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. The Doctor made them sound like a matching set. John had liked that, just a bit, hadn’t he? He had liked the way the Doctor put them on equal terms, even though it was clear to everyone that Sherlock Holmes was absolutely brilliant, and John himself was nothing of the sort. But even so he had enjoyed it. That was what he had wanted, wasn’t it? Some measure of recognition, or equality. Never mind that now it was coming from the wrong person, or that John didn’t want to be “special” in the way Doctor thought Sherlock was special. He didn’t _want_ to be like Sherlock, not if it meant he was some kind of…what was it the Doctor kept saying? _Fiction._

No, John was also a soldier, he knew he was a soldier, could feel it in his very bones. He had been shot. Would that were fiction, right? He knew for a fact he hadn’t been put here by any “Chameleon Arch.”

John straightened up and stared back at the Doctor, daring him to continue. He would make the man say the words, even if he had got the situation wrong. “Without what?”

The Doctor looked at the clock, avoiding John’s gaze. His lips curled into a sad smile. “Without John Watson,” he said.

John shook his head a little. “No. No, you’re wrong. You’re not telling me that some alien’s spaceship sent me to war and got me shot. You’re not telling me some ‘Genius’ made my mum and my da and my insane sister. You’re not. I existed long before 2005, we all did. I fought in a bloody war!” He wanted to shout the words, but no matter how upset he was he didn’t dare. Wouldn’t do to cause a scene in the British museum. John tried to steady his breathing a bit.

And there wasn’t really anything to worry about, in the end, was there? He had wanted to be addressed like Sherlock Holmes, but John knew better. Sherlock had always seemed on the verge of impossible as a person. John wasn’t like that. It was just a fact. John was strong and sure and good, perhaps. But he wasn’t extraordinary.

Finally the Doctor looked back at John. He looked worried. Or maybe concerned? John felt something sink in his stomach. “Of course you did!” the Doctor said. “You did. And you would have fought, no matter what. Just like you would have been a doctor, probably.”

_“Probably?”_

“It’s to do with the way the Chameleon Arch works. Maybe your war wouldn’t have been Afghanistan. There are lots of wars, there are wars all the time. And your name definitely wouldn’t be John Watson. The Chameleon Arch takes dormant traits and makes them more prominent. You went to medical school. You know Mendelian Inheritance, yes?”

“Yeah,” John said cautiously. Now that the Doctor was making a bit of sense, John really wasn’t sure how he felt about the fact.

“The Chameleon Arch works a lot like that, as if someone took all your recessive genes away and left only a random smattering of dominant ones. When I was human my TARDIS made me into a tutor. My whole room was covered in books,” he waved his hand about the gallery as if he was back in his old room now. “Now me, Time Lord me, I’m not a tutor, but boy do I love a good book. Or a bad book! Or a space book—those exist, and I love them! So you’d still be a soldier, I bet. You’d just be another soldier. Just like Sherlock would be the Genius. You know, the Genius was obsessed with learning. His single goal in life was to know anything, at any cost.”

John nodded. If the pursuit of knowledge wasn’t a dominant behaviour in Sherlock Holmes, John Watson wanted to know what was. Even though the Doctor sounded insane, John thought he was beginning to understand the man’s logic. Still, something niggled at his brain. It was just— “I thought you said the Genius was nothing like Sherlock.”

“He wasn’t, not really. He didn’t solve mysteries. No time to stop and help the police or right a wrong, not if he wanted to know everything. And here’s another difference: there wasn’t any John Watson. The Genius was notorious for travelling alone.”

John smiled a little at that thought. “So was Sherlock.” Things were different now. The Doctor smiled back at that. “Ah,” John said, feeling a bit exhausted. “And I’m not real?”

He still wasn’t sure he believed the Doctor. How could he?

"Well you are now, of course you are, you're John Watson." The Doctor poked John's arm. "Flesh and blood. But you're…well. You're alternate. It explains why Sherlock didn't just guess that I'm an alien, why you two seemed so surprised aliens exist! You see in London—in my London—a spaceship crashed into Big Ben, 2005, they've all known for years. They're a bit better adjusted to the concept by now, most of them anyway. Oh!" The Doctor hit his head with his palm, same as he had a few days ago, back when he had worked with them on the strangling case and John had still thought he was an ordinary bloke. "Oh, oh oh! Oh, maybe…" He pulled out the green torch, which did seem more than a little alien, now that John thought about it. The Doctor read something off the side of the torch. "Of course! That's what was wrong with the gravity filter, it wasn't the gravity filter at all. We're in a different London from mine. The TARDIS is old hat at alternate universes, of course she picked it up. Exaggerated the gravity differently as a result. It's not even really a universe so much as a temporal displacement. I can still move between those. Must have taken quite a bit of power, but…I think the Genius created his very own London."

John looked at the clock in front of him, and shook his head. He wanted to put his hands on the glass case for a moment, or the wall, anything to steady himself. But he couldn’t of course. You couldn’t just go about steadying yourself on something that protected priceless historical objects in the British Museum, not unless you wanted to be ‘kindly’ escorted out by the guards.

It was just, normally after Sherlock made a big deduction John wanted to gasp aloud—he’d learned to hold the gasping in, actually, but he never could help the all complimentary words that seemed to tumble off his lips in response. But here was the Doctor, making deductions at the speed of light, and John just wanted to…well, mostly he wanted to leave. He preferred his deductions from the morbidly obsessed and rude, and he preferred deductions that didn’t involve “temporal displacement” and alternate selves. Another London? He rubbed his forehead, feeling every crease.

The Doctor poked John’s arm again. “Sorry,” he said. He sounded unsure.

John tried to smile. It wasn’t the Doctor’s fault that John would rather be anywhere else than here at this moment. It seemed like the Doctor was just trying to help. “It’s just a lot to take in,” John said.

The Doctor looked at John for a moment as if trying to decide something. “How would you like a change of scene?”

John nodded. “I think that’d be great, actually. Where did you have in mind?”

The Doctor grinned wide. “Anywhere,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention the second half of this fic comes with bonus links? (Because it does!)  
> The "clock gallery" in the British museum, with the huge display of pocket watches, is [very much a real place](http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3618/3351725535_b65af424c9_z.jpg). (Though I might be the only one who calls it the clock gallery!) [Take a look!](http://www.flickr.com/photos/cnarnold/4710379356/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So,” the Doctor asked, “does this mean you’ll stay with Sherlock?”

“Oh,” John said. “This is… _oh._ It’s amazing. It’s not this big on the outside, is it? Did you tell us that before?”

“Yes, and not all!” The Doctor practically skipped over to the control board in the middle of his spaceship. His “slightly sentient” spaceship. John wondered if the ship was listening to their every word. The thought was a bit spooky.

But it was also _incredible_. Every surface gleamed in orange or silver or green. Smack dab in the centre was a piece of glass that chugged up and down in time with a whooshing sound John remembered well. The control panel contained very few parts that seemed like they would be actually useful in flying a ship, but every part on the board was odd and wonderful, from an old-fashioned typewriter and rainbows of switches. The Doctor pulled at a few of these switches and pushed a level upwards before turning to face John.

“If you could go anywhere in time and space, right now, where would it be?”

John thought for a second. “You’ve said there was another Sherlock Holmes,” he said. He left out the discussions of his own double for the time being. “But you also said he was fictional...so I don’t suppose we could go and see him...” John knew the request was probably impossible, but so was the Doctor, wasn’t he? And John couldn’t help being curious. Would this other Sherlock be like the one John knew? Would he have that hat Doctor kept saying Sherlock should wear?

“No, but we could meet his author— _your_ author! I wonder what Sir Arthur is up to these days...” The Doctor glanced at John and nodded. “Besides, I think you’d like Victorian London, they had all those gas lamps and, oh, Jack the Ripper! We could go see an old-fashioned crime scene, nothing like an old-fashioned crime scene. They don’t make crime scenes like they used to, John Watson!”

“Oh,” John said. His heart had sped at the thought at the Doctor’s suggestions of travelling through time to Victorian London, about stepping outside the TARDIS onto streets from another era. But that was before the Doctor had said “crime scene.”

The moment John head those words his mind went somewhere else entirely.

Suddenly John found himself wondering what Sherlock was up to. It was after lunchtime now, so the only thing John honestly knew for certain was that, wherever he was, Sherlock hadn’t eaten a thing. John could guess that Sherlock was probably back at the flat, running some experiment. If there was a case, he would’ve texted John. John checked his phone. His inbox was the same as it had been when he awoke in the morning. Not that John was certain he could get a signal inside the TARDIS, come to think of it...

The Doctor was right. John would have loved to see the late nineteenth century. But Sherlock would also love the late nineteenth century. With his skills John figured Sherlock would solve the case of Jack the Ripper in a heartbeat and lead him and the Doctor on a wild goose chase for the killer through cobblestone streets and narrow back alleyways. John could see it now, very clearly. Yes, suddenly John found the idea of travelling to nineteenth-century London without Sherlock pretty much inconceivable.

These days, any London without Sherlock was inconceivable.

“Um,” John said. He didn’t exactly want to admit that he didn’t want to take the trip of a lifetime because his flatmate couldn’t come along. That was a bit silly.

“What am I saying?” the Doctor exclaimed. “John, I can’t take you to visit Sir Arthur! I’ve never travelled with a fictional character before...to be honest, I’m not even sure you’d survive meeting your creator in the other reality. It might be one paradox too many, and we can’t do to risk you, can we? Unless I made some modifications...” The Doctor scrambled over to the other side of the control panel and pulled some other switches.

“It’s fine,” John said quickly. As much as John enjoyed danger, he didn’t fancy risking his life for a chance to meet some man who may have written about another version of him. It would probably leave him even more confused. Besides, he didn’t mind not seeing another London. He was perfectly happy with this one.

“We’ll just have to go somewhere different, somewhere even more exciting! How would you feel about Barcelona, Barcelona the planet, where the dogs and have no noses and the lovely women have two?”

John’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Absolutely! Fourth planet in the Galvantine system, just past the third moon of Paris-the-planet. Their sense of smell is incredible on Barcelona. But watch your back during allergy season.” The Doctor shuddered a bit. “Feels like a minor earthquake!”

John smiled widely at that. “Maybe we should go somewhere Sherlock would never find us,” he said. With everything the Doctor had revealed that day, especially the pieces John couldn’t even comprehend, well, he could use a little space. “Just for a bit…”

The Doctor smiled back. He flicked a few more buttons. “We’ve got all of time and space, John Watson. What would you like to see?”

 

 

The Doctor opened the TARDIS doors and John gawped.

 “Wow,” he whispered.

Stars spread out everywhere before John’s eyes like someone had dropped handfuls of diamonds onto a piece of black velvet. They shone brighter than any stars John had seen before. But even so the distant stars couldn’t compare to the shimmering, pinkish clouds billowing around shuddering empty space at their centre.

“You asked for outer space,” the Doctor said. He sounded a bit smug, and John didn’t begrudge him that for a second. He couldn’t. “How did I do?”

“Fantastic,” John said. He looked over at the Doctor, who handed him a blanket.

“That is a white dwarf star. It’s dying, of course. The locals from nearby planets call it...” Here the Doctor rattled off a series of clicking sounds with his tongue. John wasn’t sure how, but the name fit the image before him perfectly. It was as dark and lovely as the blossoming—no, the _dying_ —star.

“Anyway,” the Doctor said, “the blanket’s just in case it gets a bit cold in here, which it probably will. But no matter, you can look all you like!”

John nodded slowly and went to stand in the doorway. He gripped the side of the door, tucking the blanket under his arm. He didn’t want to fall out of the spaceship, after all. He just wanted to see the white dwarf as best he could. The Doctor stood a few feet behind him.

“Thank you,” John said quietly. He wasn’t surprised to realize he meant it, even if he still didn’t completely trust the Time Lord. The Doctor had an agenda, certainly, but he didn’t seem like the type to bribe someone with a trip in his sentient spaceship. And even if he were that type, John might have gone off with him anyway. This was unreal. It was beautiful.

The Doctor moved forward to stand next to John. He leaned against the opposite side of the doorway.

“Doctor,” John said. “If I opened Sherlock’s app—or if Sherlock opened his app—what would happen to me? And Mycroft? And Lestrade?”

“Oh!” the Doctor said. “That’s an excellent question, John Watson! Now I have a suspicion…” He pulled out the green torch again and turned it on John. John worried something horrible would happen, held his breath and wondered if the Doctor was turning him back into whoever he would be without The Genius’ changes. Without Sherlock. _God._ Even the thought of it…John shut his eyes and held himself firm. He was a solider after all. And he was the one who had asked the damn question.

The Doctor flicked open the torch and looked at it. “No!” He said to the torch. “Really?” He looked back down at the torch.

John felt his gut sink.

“Oh, I was very wrong! Which...happens. Not very often, you understand! But the good news is that you would stay right put.”

John sighed in relief.

“Well I suppose that’s the advantage to working from fiction,” the Doctor said. “Stories stick with you, like a good hug—or a toothache! It’s possible to kill a real live person, but so long as anyone’s read the story, or told their friend about that great book they just found, the characters don’t—won’t—die out.”

“You’re not saying we’re...immortal?” John turned away from the Doctor, not wanting to see the expression on the man’s face. It was embarrassing enough just asking such a ridiculous question.

Out of the corner of his eye John could see the Doctor checking the torch again. “No no no! Probably not.”

John spun back to face the Doctor. _“Probably?”_

“Let’s just say that it takes a lot more than a reworked Chameleon Arch to make someone immortal. Time Lords can live for a long time, lifetimes, in fact, but even we die.” Sadness returned to the Doctor’s voice, as naturally as if it never really left. The alien stared out at the dying star. “Everything ends,” he said.  

“I’ve been thinking about it,” John confessed. “Whether or not I should tell him.”

“You can’t,” the Doctor said. “You won’t.”

John frowned. The Doctor, of all people, should understand. “I could do! Back at the museum you told me you wouldn’t go back to being human ‘for anything.’ So how can you know that I won’t?” He felt desperate, but he wasn’t exactly sure what he felt desperate for. He didn’t want to tell Sherlock. In fact, he realized, he really, really didn’t want to tell Sherlock.

If he told Sherlock, Sherlock would certainly open the watch. That would mean John would lose Sherlock, and, really, who wanted to lose their best mate? No, John liked his reality, whether it was “alternate” or not. He liked his life. And the Doctor had said that the Genius travelled alone. John didn’t care if Sherlock, or whoever he was, lived in London or on Jupiter, he would follow him anywhere. But what if the Genius didn’t want him. John looked about the Doctor’s spaceship and felt even more certain that the Genius would toss him out. John wasn’t an alien. He couldn’t even go to the alternate universe for fear he’d...dissolve or something. The Genius wouldn’t want John. He couldn’t possibly keep up.

But maybe that was why John felt so certain he should tell Sherlock—it was so easy to want to keep things the way they were. He couldn’t be selfish like that. Someone had to fight back, didn’t they?

“Because the Genius never solved a single murder in his life.”

John sighed, rubbing his hand against the back of his neck. “I don’t think that’s reason enough,” he said.

“Oh, it’s more than that.” The Doctor smiled a bit. The sad smile. “Sherlock Holmes helps people, nearly every day. You know that.”

John nodded. It was one of the reasons he loved being Sherlock’s assistant. Sherlock found dangerous criminals and stopped them from killing again; he helped the police when the police had no one else to turn to. Their work mattered.

The Doctor stared out at the white dwarf again. John didn’t follow suit...as amazing as the star was, he had other priorities at the moment. “The Genius had no interest in helping. He didn’t have much interest in people. People were either informative or useless. He took fiddle lessons with Nero while the rest of Rome burned. Also, very rude at dinner parties.”

The Doctor glanced at John, who frowned back at him. __

“Er, that last bit might be less important. The point is, in other London, the one with the aliens, people love Sherlock Holmes stories. Power of good fiction, it gives you something to believe in, doesn’t it?”

John shifted awkwardly. The Doctor made sense, mostly, but all the same…John bit his lip. “So you’re saying that Sherlock does more good as a consulting detective, annoying Scotland Yard half to death, than as a Time Lord in a TARDIS with all of space and time?”

“Absolutely,” the Doctor said.

“Oh,” John said. He turned back to the white dwarf. Then he snorted.

“What?”

“It’s just…if Sherlock were an alien, of _course_ he’d be ‘The Genius.’” John couldn’t help it. He giggled a bit.

The Doctor frowned. “It’s a perfectly respectable name.”

“Of course,” John said. He couldn’t seem to stop laughing. “It’s just. It’s so _modest,_ isn’t it?”

The Doctor grinned at that. Then he shrugged. “Could be worse. We had the Master, of course, and the Meddling Monk…if you ever thought Sherlock was self-involved; wait until you meet a few Time Lords! Hah!” The Doctor paused. He pulled out his green torch and fiddled with it a bit. He swallowed. “Not that you will…”

 _Because they’re all dead._ John finished in his head. He understood too well why the Doctor couldn’t say it aloud. There were men in Afghanistan he thought of much the same way.

“It’s not terribly safe for us out there these days,” the Doctor said softly. He sat down where he stood, his legs dangling out the edge of the TARDIS and into space. John wondered for a moment if that was safe for humans or only for Time Lords. Then he followed suit.

The Doctor continued to play with his green torch. The longer John stared at it, the less it seemed like a torch at all. Or at least not _only_ a torch. The Doctor flipped the not-torch in his hands in a way that reminded John of Sherlock fiddling with his mobile phone. Which, John supposed, wasn’t only a phone, either.

John gestured to the Doctor’s plaything. “What is that, anyway?”

The Doctor grinned wide. “It’s called a sonic screwdriver! Made it myself. Opens almost any lock, takes readings on alien life…It’s very good in a pickle. Especially a pickle with too many cabinets. ”

John smiled back. “That’s a bit clever, isn’t it?”

The Doctor glared back before pocketing the sonic screwdriver protectively “Oi! It’s very clever. I bet your best mate would be impressed.”

John shrugged. “It’s just, Sherlock’s rather good at picking locks. And we’ve never faced an alien.”

“I’m sure you think that, yes,” the Doctor muttered.

“So it wouldn’t be of much use to us…though I imagine Sherlock would be a bit of a hazard if he had kept hold of your…er. What did you call it? The paper stuff.”

The Doctor smiled proudly once more. “Ah, yes, the psychic paper. That’s very _cool_ , isn’t it?”

“I can see how it’d be handy,” John admitted.

“Yes. And _cool._ ”

They settled into silence for a bit after that, just admiring the view. The Doctor wiggled his legs, kicking his feet back and forth. John let his body relax into the side of the TARDIS and tried to forget everything he had learned about Sherlock, and about himself. He found he couldn’t really. But his heart didn’t race at the thought, either. Maybe he didn’t have to tell Sherlock. Maybe the Doctor was right.

“So, John Watson,” the Doctor said, “does this mean you’ll stay with Sherlock?”

John glanced back at the Doctor, an answer almost automatically ready to tumble off his lips. _Of course I’ll stay with him. Why wouldn’t I?_ But then his eyes met the Doctor’s and the heart-racing panic came back in a rush. He was shocked to find his automatic answer, the one he constantly thought but had never shared with anyone, wasn’t entirely appropriate. John snorted. It had never seemed so ironic before.

John nearly laughed aloud. “I bloody well have to stay with Sherlock, don’t I?” he realized. “That bastard, he _made_ me. He never even gave me a choice!”

The Doctor stared at John. “What would you do, if you had a choice? Right here, right now. Would you leave Sherlock Holmes?”

“I don’t know…maybe?” John sighed. “Probably not.”

The Doctor smiled wide, and clapped John on the shoulder. “That is a very, very good answer.” He said. “Because John Watson, and please listen closely, Sherlock Holmes never created you.”

John didn’t try to contain his shock. “But you said…”

“I said the Genius created you— _and_ he created Sherlock. Sherlock can’t stop you from leaving him. You still have your free will. You have a choice. Sherlock Holmes had no idea you would agree to live with him the first time you two met.”

John remembered Sherlock’s confident manner during their first meeting at St. Bart’s, remembered Sherlock’s smirk and his wink. _Didn’t seem that way,_ John thought.

“I’ve watched Sherlock, John, and I’m not certain he even fully believes that you’ll stay with him now.” The Doctor winked at John.

John wasn't sure why.

“In fact…perhaps it would be best to reassure him of your position. Let him know sometime.” The Doctor’s eyes twinkled. “Couldn’t hurt, now, could it?”

It seemed impossible that Sherlock didn’t know what he meant to John. Between chases and _always buying the bloody milk_ , John figured his behaviour should have spoken for itself. But then Sherlock wasn’t like anyone else. Sentiment wasn’t really his area. No, Sherlock wasn’t like anyone, which was why... _Christ._ John frowned. Did Sherlock really not understand?

“I’ll think about that,” he promised.

“Good. Because Sherlock needs you. Even he has no idea how much.”      




“You mean he needs me to stay silent about his watch, yeah?”         

The Doctor nodded. “That too.”

John shook his head. It didn’t seem right that he should have so much power over Sherlock’s life. He preferred taking orders from Sherlock much more than holding secrets. “I don’t much like playing God,” John said.

“Nobody does.” The Doctor responded as though he’d considered the question many times. Well, John realized, perhaps he had.

“I suppose I should just appreciate being important while I still can!”

“Why?” The Doctor studied him closely.

“If Sherlock ever does open that watch, he won’t need me anymore. Like you said. When he’s the Genius, he won’t even want me there.”

The Doctor smiled sadly. “Oh. I wouldn’t say that. Maybe he wouldn’t want you, but the Genius would do well to have you by his side.” John smiled a little as the Doctor continued on. “I think a Time Lords needs companions. The Genius never had anyone to stop him. Humanity is hardly a perfect race, but neither are we. I think the Genius could have stood to be a bit more like you. Maybe you could have made him care about the people he endangered. Besides...” The Doctor stared out at the star. When he spoke again, he spoke so quietly that John had to strain to hear the words. “It gets terribly lonely.”

John frowned. It was a bit horrible, seeing the Doctor get like this. “Who’s your companion?” he asked.

The Doctor shook his head. He didn’t raise the volume of his voice. “That’s the thing. My companions…I put them in too much danger. I couldn’t risk hurting them anymore.”

John bit his lip. He wished the Doctor had someone. He wished there was some way, any way he could help. “Sometimes the danger is worth it,” he said, “if you’re making a difference...” That was how he felt with on cases with Sherlock. John had a feeling the Doctor made people feel the same way. “If you’re giving them something to believe in.” He smiled at the Doctor. “Anyway, even if you don’t have to have another companion with you, I’m sure you still have mates. Maybe someone you could pay a visit to, if you feel lonely?”

“A visit?”

 “A social call.” John shrugged. “Or you could stay with us for a while, if you’d like. Sherlock would probably love to ask all about your alien ways, even if it’s a bit rude of him.”

“No no,” the Doctor said. “I’d better leave the two of you. Sherlock is too clever by far. The longer you keep a Time Lord about, the more likely Sherlock is to guess he’s more than your average human.”

“Oh, yeah.” John was shocked to realize he’d...well, he’d not forgotten Sherlock’s identity, exactly. But somehow the Doctor’s sadness had seemed more important. “Still. You shouldn’t have to be lonely.”

“Oh, I won’t be. I’ve spent plenty of time on my own. Besides, maybe I’ll try that out. A ‘social call.’” The Doctor said the words carefully. John could tell he was amused. “I’ll have keep an eye on you, as well. You have that handy blog I can check!”

John giggled. “Sherlock would hate for you to keep tabs on us through the blog. Always says it’s inaccurate.”

“Well I think it’s fantastic.”

John nodded. “Ta.”

The Doctor jumped up and moved back to the control panel. Before he so much as hit another switch he turned back around to speak to John. “But I do have one tiny request…”

 

 

John lost track of time as he and the Doctor traded stories. John heard all about the mysterious River Song, and the time the TARDIS became slightly more than slightly sentient, and about Galifrey in the golden era, in the days when Time Lords were as wonderful as their name suggested. In return, John told the Doctor about a Study in Pink, and how Sherlock stole his gun in order to shoot the walls, and even a little about his time during the war, how he saved Bill Murray’s life once or twice. The Doctor took John to see other star systems in other galaxies, always the pair of them sharing stories whilst their legs dangled off the edge of the TARDIS into space. Always some gigantic space phenomena spread out wide before them.

By the time the TARDIS materialized outside of 221B, John was certain his phone would explode with missed texts from Sherlock as soon as they came back within range of a signal. But when they stepped outside the TARDIS and John glanced down at his phone and was shocked to find his inbox blank. He was a bit offended, really, until he checked the time on the phone.

“One p.m.?” he read aloud. He had called the Doctor—well, kazoo-ed for him—just after lunch, at 12:45. He turned to the Doctor, who was still standing inside the TARDIS doors. “How many days have we been gone for?”

“None!” the Doctor said. “Technically we’re still back at the British Museum right now. Er, I may have cheated a bit.” He didn’t sound ashamed of this fact at all. Actually, he sounded rather proud. “You can’t go back the British Museum for the next twenty minutes, all right? Wouldn’t want to run into yourself, not literally, now would you?”

John smiled as he shook his head ‘no.’ He thanked the Doctor once more and shook his hand. The Doctor laughed a bit at that and he pulled John into a hug.

“Don’t you want to come up and see Sherlock?” John asked, but the Doctor shook his head.

“Places to go, ‘social calls’ to make! Besides,” he said, “I think better safe than sorry when it comes to our very clever friend.”

John nodded. He turned and walked up to the steps to 221. Then he turned back. The Doctor was just about to shut the TARDIS doors behind him. “Doctor,” he said. “Thank you. And stay safe yourself.”

The Doctor offered John a half-smile and shut the TARDIS door.

John didn’t wait to hear the whooshing noise of the TARDIS dematerializing. Rather he unlocked the door to 221 and walked up to the flat. He was astonished to find Sherlock blowing bubbles from his new pipe and watching crap daytime telly in his pyjamas. It was one of Sherlock’s sulks all right, and a bad one at that. Sherlock wasn’t even shouting at the TV. John had to hold in a smile, however, just because the scene was so utterly Sherlock.

“You’ve been gone a long time,” Sherlock said.

“Oh,” John chastised, “I’ve been gone fifteen minutes! As if you ever notice when I leave the flat.”

“I notice,” Sherlock muttered.

John rolled his eyes.

“And it’s not hard to deduce, John, I could hear the Doctor leaving the flat. The alien with a time machine?” Sherlock shifted, settling deeper into the armchair. He crossed his arms. “Fifteen minutes!”

John stared at Sherlock, wondering about what the Doctor had said. The part about Sherlock not understanding how much he really meant to John. “Good deduction,” John said.

Sherlock scoffed. “It was simple enough. Even you could’ve guessed.” Still, Sherlock’s pleased smirk betrayed his words. “I take it you’re on speaking terms with the Doctor again?”

John sat down in a chair behind Sherlock. “I suppose,” he said, watching the back of his flatmate’s head. “But I don’t think we’ll be seeing much more of him. Sorry.”

“Why?” Sherlock kept his voice even and his eyes trained on the TV.

“Well, there were all those cold cases you wanted to go over with him...”

Sherlock shrugged. “Shouldn’t be too difficult to determine which ones involved alien technology. I’ve seen enough to have a decent idea what’s out there.” He pulled the pipe from his lips and turned around, showing it to John. “The Doctor’s present yielded some fascinating results.”

John smiled nervously. So long as it didn’t yield the result Sherlock was a Time Lord, everything was going to be fine.

Well.

Kind-of.

When John looked at Sherlock, he still saw everything he couldn't tell Sherlock. He saw every thing the detective didn’t know. John remembered the images that flashed through his brain when the Doctor took his hand in the Tesco’s dairy aisle, that blindingly powerful being with Sherlock’s face. He wished things were different. He wished it were a safer world for Time Lords. He wished that the Doctor hadn’t told him so much. He wished he could, in good conscience, let Sherlock make his own decision. But he knew better now. He couldn’t tell Sherlock. Not today.

Besides, John had no doubt that one day Sherlock would deduce the truth for himself. This was Sherlock Holmes, a proper genius—even the cleverest trap could only hold him for so long. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Sherlock would outsmart himself in spite of himself, and John thought about that future moment with the oddest sense of pride. John would follow if the Genius let him. And who knows? Just maybe the Genius would. For now he had Sherlock, and that was enough. They would cross that bridge together, whenever it came.

For now Sherlock was well on his way to a sulk, which was frankly danger enough for the moment. Still, John didn’t move to text Lestrade to make sure he didn’t have a case for them. He didn’t move to make tea or check and see if how just much mess Sherlock and his latest experiment had created in the kitchen. No, John was inexplicably stuck, simply staring at the back of Sherlock’s head, feeling the new reality, his new reality, sink in.

He was John Watson, based off a fictional character but free to make his own choices because once created he could not be uncreated so simply. According to the Doctor, anyway. He lived with Sherlock Holmes, who was really the Genius, and who was someone John still knew as well as anyone, if not better than anyone else. At the same time John didn’t know his flatmate even the tiniest bit. John lived in a world with aliens, with Time Lords, even if he lived in a London without either, and John lived in a flat with a ticking time bomb of a best mate.

But then, that’s how living with Sherlock had always felt, in a way. Like explosions waiting to happen. In fact...sitting in 221B with his time-bomb-flatmate, John was shocked to realize that the whole thing felt an odd kind of _normal._

He could live with this.

“Sherlock,” John said. Because after all this, maybe _normal_ and _liveable_ wouldn’t cut it anymore, not if John was to be a good friend to Sherlock. Sherlock couldn’t know that he could dream bigger, but maybe John could do it for him. “Have you ever considered travelling? Seeing the world a bit more?”

“Why would I ever leave London?”

John shrugged, not wanting to push too hard. But all the same, he couldn’t help it. Now that Sherlock had got even a glimpse of the Doctor’s world, how could he fail to want more? “There are murders taking place all over the planet,” he said. “We could go investigate those. Are you…Well.” He felt awkward even asking the question, but he pushed ahead. “Are you happy here?”

Sherlock tugged his legs up to his chest and finally, _finally_ twisted back to look at John. “I have my work here, John, you know that’s what matters to me. And yes,” he flung his hands out, “You are correct, I could be like my brother, board a plane and go anywhere, solve a murder. I have a trust fund. Nothing ties me to London.”

John listened carefully because he had asked. He tried not to cringe at the fact that Sherlock didn’t consider John a reason to stay in London. He nodded. “Yes you could,” John said. “And you know I would go with you, right? If you wanted to go.” He licked his lips, and forced himself to say the rest, no matter how uncomfortable he felt. “Anywhere. Because you have the work. And for what it’s worth, you have me, too.” Maybe they could travel the world as humans. Maybe that could be his compromise.

Sherlock stared back, eyes wide. John tired to press on. Clearly Sherlock was uncomfortable now, but letting the conversation stall would only make it worse.

“I mean,” John stuttered. “I mean, I don’t mean—”

“John,” Sherlock said, thankfully cutting off John’s awkward rambling. “I appreciate the sentiment. But my answer still stands. God forbid I become Mycroft in _any_ way—”

John snorted.

“—And I don’t even want to become the Doctor. That’s what you’re thinking, obviously. And frankly I don’t care if he can see all the planets. When have _planets_ ever been important in a crime?”

John smiled, more relieved at Sherlock’s answer than he would care to admit aloud. “Oh, I don’t think the Doctor would agree with you,” John said. “He told me about a case of his own. But I don’t think you’d be able to solve it. It’s about a missing planet. A bunch of missing planets, disappearing one by one. Oh,” John remembered, “and also some missing bees.”

“Bees?” Sherlock asked. He sat up straighter in his armchair.

John smirked. “But I don’t think you could solve it…”

Sherlock smiled back, same as always. Well. Not quite the same. That was the dead body smile, but here it wasn’t for a body, here it was just for a story, just for John. Something stilled and something fluttered in the pit of John’s stomach knowing that was the case. Which was…interesting.

At the very least, Sherlock’s sulk seemed to be a thing of the past.

“Try me,” the detective said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [In case anyone's curious, here is an image of the white dwarf star I described in the chapter.](http://universefall09.wikispaces.com/file/view/white-dwarf.jpg)


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There wasn’t any question where the gifts came from, not with the items wrapped in paper coloured that still-familiar shade of blue.

In retrospect, John’s encounters with the Doctor felt more like a dream than anything else. For a few weeks after the Doctor left, John watched Sherlock carefully. John waited for the day he would walk into their flat to find another man in Sherlock’s body, or the day Sherlock found an old-fashioned watch on a case. He waited for the day it turned out that Genius’s careful planning wasn’t careful enough. But then weeks turned into months and John started to relax.

They didn’t hear very much from the Doctor, but then John never expected to. John did as he promised and put up a photo on the blog so that the Doctor could see how they were getting on. He chose the photo with the Doctor in mind, even—Sherlock’s deerstalker wasn’t exactly _cool,_ but John thought the Doctor would enjoy seeing it nonetheless. Sherlock’s super-serious expression in the photo, the one that he made as if to spite the ridiculous hat, only made the entire thing more amusing. John imagined the Doctor in his TARDIS, probably off somewhere in the middle of space, seeing the blog post and the photo pop up on his monitor. John hoped he made the man smile.

Then, on Christmas morning, John woke up early and couldn’t go back to sleep. On impulse he wandered downstairs and found two presents on the landing. Only one of them was thin enough to be pushed through the mail slot, but John supposed the larger present wouldn’t have posed a problem for a man with an alien screwdriver that opened any lock. There wasn’t any question where the gifts came from, not with the items wrapped in paper coloured that still-familiar shade of blue.

The larger present was marked ‘John.’ It was also marked ‘to open in case of emergencies,’ so John made sure to hide the present before he handed Sherlock his own blue box.

He watched as Sherlock carefully unwrapped a bright red bow tie. Sherlock didn’t wear bow ties, but that didn’t stop the detective from jumping out of bed, utterly delighted, and hurrying off to the kitchen to search for proof that the ordinary-looking tie was actually from another planet. He must have run every experiment he could possibly think up, because John caught Sherlock wearing the bow tie around their flat the day before New Year’s, pulling at the fabric uncomfortably and occasionally checking his watch. When John asked what he was doing, Sherlock scowled, embarrassed, in response. John tried, rather unsuccessfully, to stop himself from giggling.

“So what did the Doctor get you, then?” Sherlock had asked.

“Oh, I think this,” John gestured to Sherlock in his bow tie and his scowl, “is probably present enough.” But then he squeezed Sherlock’s hand—he’d been doing quite a bit of that lately, little touches, seeing if it would be welcome—to take the edge off his words.

Sherlock had smiled at that, even. Then Sherlock refused to let go of John’s hand for a good, slightly awkward, minute. John had watched the seconds tick by on Sherlock’s watch. John couldn’t bring himself to actually look up at Sherlock—partially because John wasn’t sure he felt ready for whatever emotion, good or bad, that was waiting for him in Sherlock’s eyes, and partially because John honestly wasn’t certain whether he could look at Sherlock’s face without losing it over the bow tie all over again. That would be horrid, if Sherlock mistook his laughter as ridicule over the hand-holding. No, best to keep his eyes down, John thought. Still, he couldn’t help the way his heart beat a little faster at the fact that Sherlock wouldn’t let go.

Then On New Year’s Eve, Sherlock muttered something about “horrid traditions” and kissed John. John pulled back, took a deep breath, and realized he didn’t feel worried or put off at all. Surprised? Yes. Happy? Very much so. Desperate for more? Er, well.

It had been a good night.

They had a few good— _very_ good—months together. That is, until they lost the Moriarty trial. Then John’s entire world broke apart, piece by tiny piece, even without Sherlock opening the fob watch app on his phone.

Then somehow John found himself struggling to breathe, found himself listening to Sherlock’s bloody “note” as his brand-new boyfriend watched him from atop the roof of St. Bart’s, found himself crying out Sherlock’s name, found himself staring at Sherlock’s bleeding body, and found himself helpless as his body was pushed away by paramedics. John realized in that moment that the Doctor has been dead wrong. The Doctor had said the world wasn’t safe for Time Lords, fair enough, but this world hadn’t been bloody safe for Sherlock Holmes, either. John should have told Sherlock about the Genius while he still had the chance. If Sherlock had a TARDIS and two hearts, if he wasn’t Sherlock Holmes anymore, then obviously he would have been able to survive whatever torture Moriarty used to get him to jump off that roof. He would have had more bloody resources. He would have survived.

He would have _survived._

If John had only known, he could have told Sherlock about the app. Sherlock would become the Genius and found another TARDIS of his own. The Genius would have been able to run away. Unlike Sherlock, the Genius never would have had to face Moriarty at all.

Now John was alone, yet everything in their flat reminded him of Sherlock Holmes. Even the flat itself. He saw Sherlock in the wallpaper, in the floorboards, in that stain on the kitchen table. After Sherlock died John sat in his usual chair, looking at the empty space where Sherlock should be, and he knew he had to go. He couldn’t stay in 221B alone.

John had stood and pulled back the chair’s cushion. There it was, still safe in its hiding spot, the Doctor’s bloody Christmas present.

 _To open in case of emergencies_. That’s what it said on the wrapping. Maybe the Doctor’s gift would have helped. Another resource, wasted.

John thought to himself that he probably he ought to throw the gift away. It wouldn’t do him any good now that Sherlock was gone, would it? But John found himself holding fast to the blue-wrapped present, found himself carefully undoing the wrapping paper. He picked away the tape on the back, unfolded the paper around the seams.

He found a red book, the exact same colour as Sherlock’s tie. He read the book’s title and felt like he had been slapped in the face.

 _The Complete Sherlock Holmes,_ it read. _By Arthur Conan Doyle._

John didn’t want to touch the book, but John opened it anyway. There were two inscriptions marked on the inside cover. The word _Spoilers!_ had been scrawled across over a dark red lipstick print. John realized distantly that this must have been River Song’s handiwork. Below the kiss, in entirely different handwriting, the second inscription read, _To Dr. John Watson: Your own Journal of Impossible Things. Love, the Doctor._

John had flipped through the pages, scrunching his eyes to make out very small print. He sat down in the chair again and he read and read and read. He read as though he could somehow lose himself in the stories and never come out again.

They weren’t quite right, the stories. They weren’t about him and Sherlock. But they were close enough, in a way. John read about those odd other-people with their exact same names, about some other man named Sherlock who didn’t give one whit about the solar system. John read, and mourned, and he even smiled a bit at the knowledge that Sherlock would’ve been very miffed to learn he wasn’t actually the only consulting detective in the world.

John wanted to put the book down and never look at it again. He wanted to read it over and over again, so that every word would be permanently imprinted into his mind. He had smiled when he read “A Scandal in Bohemia,” even though he wasn’t quite sure why. He had frowned when he read “The Final Problem,” when he had to read about some other-him attempt to cope with some other-Sherlock’s death. At the first mention of Moriarty’s name something sharp seemed to pinch at his insides. But he finished the story, because he had to, because he couldn’t help himself. Then he hated himself all the more because somehow both Sherlock Holmeses were dead. That hadn’t even made sense—one of them was completely fictional! But in spite of all that, it felt to John as though he had killed them both.

But then John held the half-finished book in his hands and realized something was off. He flipped ahead through the remainder of the pages, spotting Sherlock’s name again and again. It hadn’t made any sense. If both Sherlocks were dead, how could there possibly be so many stories left in Mr. Doyle’s book?

John read about the Empty House, about “a Norwegian named Sigerson,” about all the cases the other John and Sherlock still had left together. He read and read and somewhere along the way he felt something shift inside himself. Somewhere along the way John had stopped reading to escape, and started reading to...well. To hope, he supposed.

John held the back cover of the book open between his fingers. He couldn’t bring himself to close the final page. It felt as though he had missed something. The other Sherlock had never been dead. Other John Watson had simply missed the clues. Maybe he himself had missed clues, too.

Sherlock dropped his phone, hadn’t he, just before he jumped? Maybe, John reasoned, maybe Sherlock wasn’t actually _Sherlock_ when he jumped. That day John had travelled in time without even realizing, back when they were sitting in the TARDIS together, the Doctor told John that Time Lords didn’t die like everyone else. After Sherlock jumped the paramedics pushed John away. They carted Sherlock off. Maybe Sherlock had opened the app already, maybe after the paramedics took Sherlock away he had shocked them all and _regenerated._ One final trick. Maybe John had really heard Sherlock say goodbye, maybe that part had been honest…but maybe his Sherlock turned into the Genius after that, and maybe his friend wasn’t actually gone.   

John realized the hope was growing stronger still.

Maybe Sherlock was off seeing the stars now, or the planets, or meeting other alien societies. Maybe right now Sherlock—the Genius—was solving a crime on Mars.

The Doctor had said the Genius would still remember John, even if he changed. Maybe his Genius would return. Or maybe not. But maybe he was still out there, somewhere.

John would never know.

No, that wasn’t true, John realized. That wasn’t true at all.

The day after Sherlock died, John scrambled into their bedroom and opened his bedside table drawer. He picked up the hot pink kazoo resting there, right next to his gun.

He held it up to his mouth and blew.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [John references this photo he posted on his blog.](http://www.johnwatsonblog.co.uk/blog/19december)
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> Thanks so much to everyone who's stuck with this story and left kudos! I hope you have enjoyed it. :D


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